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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644122">Crystalline and Mineral Research</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonfeathers/pseuds/Dragonfeathers'>Dragonfeathers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters: Sword &amp; Shield | Pokemon Sword &amp; Shield Versions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Belly Kink, Breast Expansion, Eating inedible objects, F/M, Fantasy World, I tried to write something that’s just a loose excuse for smut, Lactation Kink, Slow burn but everyone kind of fucks around in the meantime so this is full of smut, Stuffing, Weight Gain, but then it... plot..., lot...of ...plot, people eat a lot of things you can’t eat in this thing and they enjoy it a lot, seriously this thing has too much plot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:40:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonfeathers/pseuds/Dragonfeathers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Volunteers wanted for scientific research. </p><p>Must be:<br/>Female, under 40, plump figure (preferred,) magical ability (absolutely required.) </p><p>Research will last four to six weeks.”</p><p>Plum, a battle mage with a big appetite and very little shame, is torn when a suspiciously specific job posting appears on the guild’s errand-board, posted by the King’s university no less, and applies to it out of some morbid sense of curiosity. </p><p>Luckily she did, because it looks like she’ll be a lot richer- and fatter- for it when she meets a handsome alchemist with a very specific experiment in mind, and soon gets dragged into an ancient mystery that spirals out of control...</p><p>****</p><p>LOOK AT THE TAGS BEFORE READING- this is KINK SMUT! PLEASE BE AWARE OF THE TAGGED CONTENT!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Makuwa | Gordie/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>****This is SHAMELESS STUFFING KINK SMUT. if you are not here to read that, please click off and have a nice day. ***</p><p>Everyone else- I was stuck with loved by the spirits because Estelle has too much shame and it’s holding up the story so I wanted to write a one shot with a female lead who just fuckin goes for it but uhhh there’s a lot of this it just appeared fully formed over the weekend so * sprinkles u with crystals* enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Volunteers wanted for scientific research. </p><p>Must be:<br/>
Female, under 40, plump figure (preferred,) magical ability (absolutely required.) </p><p>Research will last four to six weeks.”</p><p>Plum glared at the notice with her hands on her hips. Who put such a notice up on the errand board- and why hadn’t Filia taken it down?</p><p>Perhaps it was because the request claimed to be from the university, and no one wanted to take responsibility for it in case it was legit. Well. Of course it wasn’t from the King’s university. As if they would post such filth.</p><p> </p><p>She felt herself blushing because she of course fit the categories- that the poster was asking for- and why shouldn’t she? She was a very successful mage, why shouldn’t she enjoy the fruits of her labor and indulge every so often? So what if calling her ‘plump’ might be a bit of an understatement? She still had plenty of fight in her- just with a bit of a gut and soft, heavy tits that she was secretly quite proud of. She was still plenty attractive, right? She was very heavily freckled and a had a bit of a snub nose, but between her tits and her long pink-brown hair, she was definitely an absolute stunner! She frowned. She was feeling all insecure, and it wasn’t like her. Just because one inanimate poster was calling her fat, now she was having a strop? Just because she’d been... enjoying a lot more food lately, and had a few more inches around the waist than she used to. She huffed at herself. Those were good inches! Soft inviting inches ready to be loved on! Covered in cute freckles and attached to the rest of a hot lady! </p><p>She tore the offending poster sharply off the board and marched over to Filia’s office. </p><p>“Why did you let them post this filth?” She said, holding the paper right under the Guild  Secretary’s nose, interrupting her reading.</p><p>She blinked at it, and then shrugged. “They want someone mage level, and they’re paying well. It fits our rules for posting.”</p><p>“Of course they’re not paying well- it’s a scam. Or a joke. There’s no reason an actual scientific study would have such- such specifications.”</p><p>“That’s what I thought, but the guy’s paperwork was legit and his field of magic was pretty immense, so I figured, why not post it up.” She nodded at her friend’s tummy and grinned cheekily. “Perhaps you should go for it.” </p><p>Plum flushed. “Perhaps I shall. Just to tell them where they can stick their infuriating notices.”</p><p>She penned an- only slightly rude- application letter that afternoon enquiring as to the nature of the experiment and why on earth would they care about the gender and size of the volunteer and sent it off, and didn’t think more about after ripping the notice up and cramming it into the bin as Filia watched and giggled, then complaining to her about it for a good hour that evening as they worked on some woven charms together. </p><p>—-</p><p>Surprisingly, the guild’s glittering wax seal seemed to have got her in, and the very next morning Filia was bursting into her room and shoving a very official looking letter into her face with no less than three seals of its own.</p><p>“Plummy! Open it- a uni messenger just came by and said it was very important!” She said, shaking her and hitting her over the head with the paper. </p><p>“Fi, it’s not even eight yet, nothing’s that important.” She shoved the smaller woman off of her, sat up and opened the letter- the expensive wax made a lovely noise as it cracked and filled the room with an orange scent that made her crave breakfast instead of important papers from rude people.</p><p>“What does it saaay? I’m so intrigued!” </p><p>“It says- Filia, leave your guild members alone and go and do your duties.” </p><p>Filia ignored her and pressed close enough to read as well.</p><p>“Whoa- they want you to come in today? That was bloody quick! And they’re going to pay-“ she gasped. “Plum, you have to go. Twelve gold a week?! For four weeks minimum?” </p><p>“They didn’t answer any of my questions, though.” </p><p>“I mean- they sort of answered.” </p><p>She made a face. “”Body work?” You don’t need to be a chubby woman to do body work.”</p><p>“And body work sounds like a euphemism when you say it like that.” Filia pointed out, helpfully.” </p><p>“Yeah. It sounds like a rich man looking for a very specific good time.” </p><p>“And on the universities money, too. How shameless.”</p><p>“I thought you wanted me to take this job?” </p><p>“Oh, I don’t- but I desperately want you to go to the interview to find out about it. It can’t be just body work though- it’s from the department of crystalline and mineral research, and it says you don’t need previous experience with body work either.”</p><p>“Good, because the only body work I can do is drying myself off when I come out of the rain.”</p><p>“Yeah- but you could learn. It’s just auras and being in tune with your own energy, right? And turning it on other people?”</p><p>“I guess. Probably more maths than magic at a university level.” </p><p>“It’s signed by so many... personages.” </p><p>“Yeah. And the dean himself.” She traced the stamps and swirling signatures with her fingers.</p><p>“I mean- you haven’t got any work planned that neeeds to be done this morning...” Filia prompted.</p><p>“Fine. I’ll go. I am curious too, now I know it’s actually from the university.”</p><p>“Yes! Can I come as your chaperone?”</p><p>“No. You definitely have things to do today, madam secretary.” </p><p>“True. But I expect a very detailed report on your return!”</p><p>“Aye aye, I will absorb gossip like a sponge.” She reassured her.</p><p>—</p><p>Some tea, a shower and a change of clothes later, she was feeling more up for this interview. She set off in plenty of time, but her good spirits waned as she approached the university on its cliffside at the edge of the capitol gorge. It looked impossibly tall- a crumbling, ancient building half carved out of the cliffside, half built on top of it in the confusing, asymmetrical style of ancient buildings, and the gardens on top had grown so out of control it was said to be half held together by roots and magic rather than masonry.</p><p>It was built so long before the fall of the old empire that no one even knew how old it was, and it certainly had an impressive aura. Half of the buildings were formed to look like  giant, misshapen people, and all the decorations were made of humans too- swirls turned into eyes, hands held up the edges of rooves- apparently, at the end of each gutter, there was a perfectly sculpted disembodied pair of lips and a tongue to form the water spout. Even far away- it just felt /off/, like an unsettled mass of spirits perched on the edge of the cliff, ready to crash down.</p><p>Luckily, she had a guide assigned to her as she entered the new-built hall at the base of the cliff and introduced herself- apparently she was expected. </p><p>They zipped up the inside of the cliff in a modern elevator thanks to the student’s levitation runes. Inside, the building seemed more normal, at least- having probably been mostly gutted and refurbished two hundred years ago, and there were no unsettling eyes following her everywhere or tiles shaped like upturned feet on the floor. Once they arrived, they walked briskly through corridors past classroom after classroom, her guide off-handedly naming the subject areas and tutors as though that meant anything to her. She was glad she’d worn her smartest clothes, though- everyone was wearing the navy blue jacket and crisp white collar with the insignia of the uni- apart from the few tutors she passed, who wore much the same thing but some with flowing robes over the top and a train billowing behind them- some especially scholarly persons even wore their plumed hats and carried their ceremonial staves tucked under their arm like they were a straight out of a picture book. </p><p>“Here we are- in the alchemy wing now.” Her guide exclaimed, after they’d been walking a good twenty minutes, and showed her through into an empty classroom set up with equipments for magical aptitude testing. She rolled her eyes.</p><p>Plum thanked her guide, who scuttled off immediately, and left her with a bored-seeming man who introduced himself as administrative staff and seemed relieved that she was well familiar with the aptitude tests. Every half decent mage was- it was all the rage to test out your mages before you hired them these days, as though guild membership meant nothing unless you saw someone set air on fire or revive a withered flower before you sent them to explore lord knew where or kill however many monsters it was this time. </p><p> It was surprising, though- they left off after the first ten or so tests- and she’d been brushing up on her living creature transmutation especially. Her party trick was giving the little mouse fluffy little wings and a lion’s mane- physically not too hard to do since it wasn’t changing the creature itself, just adding a little bit, but it always got people cooing over it, and part of magic was style anyway. </p><p>Ah, well. She was sat down and told to wait- then the man looked critically at her, ticked something off on his clipboard and poked his head through the conjoining door.</p><p>“Sir? Your mage is here- are you in the middle of something?” He vanished through and she was left in the empty classroom. </p><p>Thankfully, she wasn’t left to fidget for too long- he reappeared and waved her through. “He’ll see you now, Miss. Go on through to the lab.</p><p>She thanked him and went through, her eyes going wide. The smell hit her first- it smelled mouth-watering- of spice and crystal and the hair on her arms prickled at the leftover magic hanging in the air like a rain cloud. </p><p>This was a proper alchemist’s lab- the floor to ceiling shelves were piled with equipment and ingredients and students dotted the room. Plum’s eyes glittered<br/>
at the fabulous amounts of crystalline ingredients heaped on every surface- along with shells, horn, powdered spice, vials and vials of liquids and great hunks of earth and metal. There was distilling equipment and burners and ovens and the windowsill was crammed with rare plants with partially crystallised leaves and fruits. University money was truly on a whole other level- she couldn’t imagine having access to such wealth. She got distracted by a mountain of yellow- orange citrine crystals heaped on a workbench- the deposit it had come from must have been immense, each piece was cut into squares fully three feet across, and there were dozens of them- and then a man waved her through round a big standing saw to where there was space for some comfier chairs in amongst the chaos, with a tea tray perched unsteadily on top of a pile of papers. </p><p>“Hello, you must be Plum.” The man said, holding out a hand which she shook, then sat down opposite the handsome man.</p><p>And, blast, he was handsome- he had a boyish, open face and messy blonde hair with unfairly pretty eyes behind blue-tinted eyeglasses. He was big, too- taller than her with broad shoulders and a barrel chest- and just the slightest hint of a tummy pushing out his loose blue jacket and white coat. </p><p>“Please, make yourself comfortable, Plum.” He said, sitting opposite her. “I’m Gordie. Well- professor Gordon Pembroke-Wyndragon, but Gordie will do. I work here in the alchemy department, specifically in crystalline and mineral research.” </p><p>“I’m Plum Arnby, and you probably know I’m a mage with the Clearleaf guild.” She said, trying to only stare as much as could be mistaken for polite interest. </p><p>“Yes- I hear you breezed through the magic tests with flying colours. Would you like some tea?”</p><p>“Well, I suppose you could say that- and, uh, yes please, I’d love some.”</p><p>“So. This job. What do you know about amethyst?”</p><p>Damn. Stupid her- she’d been so busy cramming for the tests and the body work, she hadn’t thought to study the actual department-  she racked her brains. “Um. It’s... fairly uncommon in these parts- and it’s used for... healing?” She trailed off. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what it’s used for more specifically. My chemistry is a little rusty. But I’m willing to learn!”</p><p>He held up a hand. “Thank you, but we won’t really need you to. We didn’t ask for a chemist after all, we just needed a mage. I just wanted to know where to start explaining from-milk? Sugar?”</p><p>“No thank you.”</p><p>He passed her her cup of tea- it  looked like fancy stuff, and smelled heady and fragrant. She sipped as he started to explain. </p><p>“So. To cut a long story short- you know amethyst has healing properties. As does most quartz. But we’ve found a deposit of what seems to be some very strange  amethyst in a cave in the foothills- it seems to be some of the most powerful crystal that’s ever been recorded, but it’s just-“ he snapped his fingers. “Inert. Like- you pull it out of the ground and after a few minutes it’s just a lump of rock. No help at all in even the most basic rituals, all that power just drains out somehow? We’ve tried everything to try to get this healing power out- and we’ve had a little joy- but this cave is so inaccessible- the deposit’s power makes portaling in pretty tricky, and we can’t exactly drag patients a mile under a hill to get to it, and it’s not a big enough deposit to be worth tunnelling in for it-“ he broke off and coughed.</p><p>“So we thought we’d try making a potion the old-fashioned way. The, uh, arcane way. And that’s where you come in.” He went bright red and looked anywhere but at her. </p><p>She blinked. Then automatically crossed her arms over her chest. “No thank you.”</p><p>“That’s very understandable.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “If you know any other mages who might be interested, please send them our way. As I’m sure you can imagine, we’re rather at our wits end trying to find someone.”</p><p>“I can imagine.” She said drily. “Maybe it would be easier if you didn’t put up such a rude notice.”</p><p>“I’d rather have a rude one than sugar coat it and have to turn more people away. You know it’s a lot of money we’re offering so if it’s any less blunt we’d have all manner of people trying to apply.” </p><p>She sniffed. “I’m sure you’ll find another way to make use of the quartz. It’s a lot to ask of someone, you know. Especially since /you’re/ out of the question anyway.”</p><p>He raised an eyebrow. “Believe me, I tried to work around that. No such luck.”</p><p>Her eyes slid down to his chest automatically and she tore them back up. “Well. I suppose it’s. Good to try every option.” </p><p>She made herself look back at his face and he was even redder than before, with a hand over his mouth. “Um, sorry. That was a bit much, wasn’t it. I’ll- uh, I’ll have someone see you out.”</p><p>“Excuse me. I want to finish my tea.” She said, not budging an inch, and then smirked at him. He was cute when he was embarrassed. “So why are you so set on an arcane potion? Why not try to work with it on-site- or even just- grind it up and eat it, store it that way, if you’re doing an arcane working anyway.” </p><p>He shook his head. “It just loses its power so quickly, it’s a nightmare- most basic healing potions take two minutes just to boil it down and by then it’s gone! And I’ve tried eating it, but it’s gone after an hour or two, which just isn’t long enough to get any meaningful kind of treatment done.” He sighed. “It just seems such a waste. I mean- you know if  we could get it into a stable form, we could send it off to the four corners of the country and treat fifty patients the time it’d take me to do one. And there’s a /lot/ of that Crystal. He looked back at her. “And I’d been meaning to try to do a more rigorous study on arcane distillation anyway, so I thought now is as good a time as ever.”</p><p>“Sir’s just a big fan of the arcane way of doing things.” A stocky, dark-haired student came over and prodded his arm with a clipboard. “It’s time for the repetition of the citrine test.” </p><p>“Right- is it time already?” He stood up and undid his jacket. “Come on, Plum- if you’re here you might as well watch.”</p><p>They went back to the enormous pile of citrine in the corner and Gordie stood on a painted x on the floor, then leaned over to scribble on a chart and grab something off of a scale. </p><p>She frowned- it was the citrine, sawn into uneven pieces some of the chunks were almost bite sized and others were definitely not- her eyes widened as she realised what this crazy man was about to do-</p><p>“Right. That’s five to twelve.” He said, looking over at the clock. “What’s the weather in highcastle?” </p><p>“Raining. Like usual.” Said another student, a girl this time. </p><p>“Right. You might want to stand back, Plum, or you’ll get wet.”</p><p>“What’re you doing?”</p><p>Opening a really, really big portal.” He swallowed and rubbed his throat. In the same place every day, and measuring how big it gets. Hence the citrine.” And then he dusted off the chunk of citrine on his jacket, tipped his head back and swallowed it with a gasp.</p><p>She put her hand over her mouth- that looked uncomfortable- but Gordie cheerfully swallowed another massive chunk and this time she could see his throat bulge around it- it hit the other one in his stomach with an audible /clunk/ that went straight through her.</p><p>He looked over at her and patted his stomach. She wondered if he could feel the crystals from the outside. </p><p>“So with ground up crystal, in a normal working, the amount of effect it gives is pretty standard, right?” He paused to gulp down another handful. “But- you’ll see from the chart- the amount of energy I’m getting is all over the place.” Another pause, another swallow- “and even then- I’ll absolutely exhaust myself and then later it’ll be fully charged again? As though it’s getting more energy just from being in my stomach- and that one is much more consistent, interestingly, but then sometimes it’ll even go a third time before it fully breaks up.” He’d eaten so much his stomach was bloated out, now- she blanched as she looked back over at the scale- was he really going to eat all that just for one repetition of the test? That amount of high-grade citrine would keep her fed and housed for half a year!</p><p>“Why are you using so much? Surely you’ve got enough to open a portal by now.” She said, a tad faintly. </p><p>“Yeah, but we’ve tried variations on this experiment with smaller amounts and different people, and since this deposit was so big, we can really go all-out whilst keeping the control variables the same.” He swallowed yet another massive piece. “Plus I’m a hard hitter, and we really wanted to push the limits of what you can do with this kind of arcane stuff. The human body is a powerful thing.” </p><p>“Plus you just like the excuse to stuff your face on the king’s dime.” The dark-haired boy pointed out.</p><p>Gordie shrugged. “Maybe. Don’t tell anyone.” He winked at Plum, swallowed the last of the citrine and patted his stomach. “Right.” He rubbed his hands together and squared his shoulders. “Are the Picts ready?” </p><p>One student with a farspeaker in her hand nodded. </p><p>“Then let’s go-“ he spread his hands and the portal opened in front of him- one, three, six feet wide- it looked like a hole torn in the air framed by lightning, the energy roiling and protesting as it held the unnatural shape- rain and wind came in from the other side and she could see the craggy outline of the High Keep Castle- another student informed her that that was the view from Highcastle U, and then the view shrank- the portal must be getting bigger on the other side as Gordie reached the limits of the size of the lab. </p><p>More and more water came through as the scenery shrank at a dizzying pace- “Okay- I’m going to hold it there-“ Gordie said, squeezing his eyes shut and hanging his head- one student student counted out loud, watching the clock as their teacher’s hands started to shake- he held it for a count of ten and then gasped let the portal snap shut. </p><p>He staggered back to lean on the table, panting and wiping his wet hair off of his face. “Phew. That felt big.”</p><p>“It was- almost a mile wide, sir. Highcastle says well done.” Said the student with the farspeaker. </p><p>“And I say he’s just showing off because there’s a girl here.” Someone else piped up.</p><p>“Wendy, you are a girl and you’re always here.” </p><p>“Not like she’s a girl.” A tiny little thing with mousy brown hair popped out from behind the bandsaw and grinned at her. </p><p>“Thank you... I think.” Plum said, looking back at Gordie, who seemed a little dazed but otherwise strangely upright and alive for someone who had just channeled that much magic all at once. She had to admit, it was stunning. One person making a portal that size? Even with that much citrine, and even only held for ten seconds, it was... she’d never seen a working that could compare. </p><p>“Pretty impressive, right?” Gordie grabbed a towel and a glass of water from the side and chugged the drink as if he needed anything else in his stomach. It had to hurt. </p><p>“I didn’t realise it could be that much more powerful.”</p><p>“And there’s still more where that came from, if you can believe it.” He dug a hand into his stomach and shook it. “Can you hear that? Most of it’s still there. The second portal usually gets to hundreds of feet across, and sometimes I can even go for a third in the evening.”</p><p>She couldn’t hear anything but nodded anyway she- suspected it was probably muffled by fat and she was proved right when he pulled his tunic up to show a pale, round, jiggly tummy and dug a hand into his bare skin. “Come and feel- you can feel it from the outside.”</p><p>She gingerly dug a hand in- his skin was cold and clammy from the rain and the exertion but oh lords she could feel them in there- she met his eyes and he grinned at her. </p><p>“I mean, you can see why I’m so keen to try it with the quartz we found, right? Imagine if we could get /that/ into a potion?”</p><p>“Yeah...” she withdrew her hand. “That does sound like the logical thing to do.”</p><p>“By the way-“ he put his stomach away and fastened his jacket again. “This is why we had to be so rude and ask for a plumper gal. All these pointy things in you can get painful when you’re skinny. And there’s usually, uh, more distilling power up here.” He waved a hand in front of his own chest, and she resisted the urge to cross her arms to try to hide her own ‘distilling power.’ She could see how this was the sort of person who’d tried to make himself lactate so he could do arcane magic. </p><p>Imagine- having that much raw power at her disposal. No wonder it had been outlawed after the fall. </p><p>Gordie held out a sliver of Crystal. “You wanna try a little? Suck on it like a sweet if you don’t want to swallow it whole.” </p><p>Of course she accepted- it felt tingly and zingy- like doing a really good working but in her mouth, and tasted almost like oranges but not quite- her hair stood on end at just the sliver of crystal-how was Gordie still standing after all that? </p><p>“It’s good, right?”</p><p>“Yeah.” She swallowed it- it went down surprisingly easy, and she could feel a more muted tingling in the pit of her stomach. “I’m definitely going to try some arcane style next time I have to do a big working.”</p><p>“Good to hear. I mean- I’m all for modern science, but if regular alchemy is so much weaker, why do it just to be ‘decent?’ </p><p>He seemed like he was about to go off on another rant about magic but cut himself off. “Er- time for lunch, I think. Do you want to come join me for some food on your way out? The catering here is excellent.” </p><p>Right- she’d said she wasn’t interested. She swallowed. “I will come to lunch- but you can tell me more of about the details of this experiment- your little demonstration has me more open to changing my mind.”</p><p>He beamed at her and the students burst into excited muttering. “Right this way then- EVERYONE-“ he raised his voice to yell at the students at the back of the lab. “No explosive workings while I’m not here to supervise. Poor Demeter can’t cope with any more fires!” </p><p>He talked animatedly at her on the roundabout, confusing way to the canteen, and thankfully swept her straight through the massive, echoey hall filled with teenagers yelling at each other to the staff dining hall, where only a few dozen people were trying to talk over each other. </p><p>An unusual cast of characters peered over at her- she saw what must surely be a mermaid with a land form spell cast on her, some beast men, and a gnome amongst some more ordinary scholars, all wearing the uniform in various states of dishevelment. </p><p>“Gordie! Another one of your girls?” Piped up a man covered in blue scales and with a viscious fanged smile. </p><p>“Don’t be so rude!” He said, making a crude gesture in his direction. “She might have been /the/ girl and you just scared her off with your manners!” </p><p>“Please excuse the beast tamers. They have no class. That’s Raihan-“ the scaled man waved- “and Leon- the better beast tamer-“ a man with a purple mane of hair smirked and waved and the first man- Raihan- breathed a spout of fire at him.<br/>
And that’s Nessa- marine studies; Milo- botany; Klara- potions, of course; and there’s piers over there- he looks like he’s napping but he’s probably just got his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to talk to anyone. He’s studying undoing hexes. And there’s a bunch of others but you’ll meet them all at some point. I mean. If you go through with it, I mean.”</p><p>He pulled a chair out for Plum and she sat- immediately staff appeared with glasses of water and a plate of food for her- and a much larger one for Gordie. </p><p>They both dug in- Gordie kept up a steady stream of info about the project and arcane alchemy in general as he ate- for example, what was happening to the citrine in him as he filled up even more on seconds and then thirds in the span of time she took to eat one helping, the staff appearing with more every time he cleared his plate. </p><p>“So I am still digesting it, just more slowly than regular food.” He massaged his stomach as if to prove his point. “It’s got smaller already. To be honest, you get used to it surprisingly quickly.”</p><p>The dragon man from before pulled out the chair on Plum’s other side and sat down. “So has he succeeded in roping you into his crazy scheme?” Raihan said. </p><p>“Cant argue with results, Rai.” Gordie interrupted. </p><p>“Don’t listen to him- this guys got rocks in his head as well as his stomach. Did you hear what he tried to do to himself before he-“ </p><p>“She knows.” Gordie cut him off and apparently kicked him under the table. “Thank you.”</p><p>“I mean- I feel more reassured that he’s tried it on himself, actually. He isn’t just getting a woman in to do it for some kind of- creepy excuse.”</p><p>“Nah. He may be daft, but he’s a decent sort, don’t worry. And besides, we’ll look out for you.” Raihan said, flashing her a charming grin.</p><p>She cleared her plate and sat back, wishing that there was a just a bit more but not wanting to be rude and ask for seconds.</p><p>She looked up from her plate to see Gordie looking at her critically. “I suppose the only thing left to say is that if you were to do this you’d need to eat a bit more- you’re not quite as big as we need you, Plum.” </p><p>She swallowed, looking down at her belly sitting in her lap. “Um. How big did you need me, and why? I thought we would cut it up- you really think I’m not fat enough already?” She put her hand on her belly and rubbed at the loose flesh over her full stomach. </p><p>“Yeah- but apparently it works better when you’re heavier. Shrugged. Opal’s the one researching the body’s field, and she says so- plus- all our tests and research line up with it. My magic’s a hell of a lot more powerful than it used to be for sure.” </p><p>She looked at his stomach, resting comfortably on his thighs- thighs she could see were spread a little to make room for it, even. Well. She did like food. And here was an excuse landing in her lap to just let go and eat as much cake as she could hold and damn the consequences... she puffed her belly out, imagining it bigger. It might be kind of nice. He certainly looked pleased enough with himself, one hand resting absentmindedly near the top of it. </p><p>“We’d feed you while you gain the weight and all the time you’re staying here, of course. I’d estimate-“ he looked at her critically again and it made her want to squirm in her seat- “two, three weeks? Of eating and then three on the potion. Maybe more, depending how much amethyst you can eat at once and how long it takes to come in. You know.” He waved a hand in front of his chest.” For your body to start producing the healing potion.</p><p>She looked back down at herself. Her nice skirt was already so tight you could see the indent of her belly button where the rest of her gut was pressing on the fabric. The thought of gaining more was embarrassing, sure, but also... kind of hot. Very hot, she corrected herself, feeling Gordie’s eyes still on her. If this man was going to be making sure she ate and got nice and big for him, then that would be very hot. </p><p>“So that’s twelve gold pieces a week, for a month and a half of sitting around stuffing my face?”</p><p>“It’s not going to be quite that easy, but yeah, basically.”</p><p>“Put that in writing and you can count me in.”</p><p>He shook her hand. “Thank you. You have no idea how hard it’s been to try to fill this position.” </p><p>“I have an idea.” She said drily.</p><p>“We only had fifty applicants, and interviewed ten, and five had no magic at all, and the other five had barely any and stormed out once they heard what we were trying to do- and then the next round were /worse/ if you can believe- and you being a mage already, and practically already at the target weight- I think this is going to be such a success!”</p><p>She nudged his foot under the table. “Oy! You’re supposed to be polite about that!” She was only half offended- she supposed she’d better get used to people talking about her weight from now on. She kind of didn’t mind when it was him pointing it out, either. </p><p>“Sorry, you agreed to it now- I’m just being factual about where we’re starting from!”</p><p>“I haven’t signed anything!”</p><p>“I’ll go get them to fetch you some seconds- since you’re such a dainty little wisp of a girl who’s clearly starving to death.” He teased. </p><p>“Hypocrite! She yelled at him as he sauntered off towards the door to the kitchens. </p><p>“This is obviously just bloating from the citrine. I’m really quite tiny!”</p><p>—-</p><p>“So- we’ll have to get it all approved but I should get you a letter by the end of the week- where are you based? Cloverleaf guild, right?” </p><p>“Clearleaf guild.”</p><p>“Sorry. My brain’s only good for science, not remembering things.”</p><p>“Mm-hm? You do give me that impression.” </p><p>He walked her the rest of the way out of the building- she knew she was going to get so, so lost in these rambling corridors the minute she was left alone. Thankfully, they were walking slowly too- she’d ended up eating three more helpings of dinner, and she wasn’t sure her skirt could stand up to the pressure if things moved too violently. </p><p>“Well- have a good last week of freedom.” He said once they reached the elevator, beaming at her. “If you don’t mind, you could try to get a head start with this.” He said, and patted his stomach. “But don’t worry if you don’t get the chance.”</p><p>She gulped. “Okay- I’ll see what I can do. I’ve got a few errands to wrap up first.” </p><p>He gave her a thumbs up and a wave and that was that.</p><p>Now all that was left was to pack her things, await her letter of employment- and explain herself to her guildmaster.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Moor Beasts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Plum starts preparing for the experiment, and is derailed by giant beasts on the ruined moor.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Two chapters in the same week, what’s happening?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He wants you to do WHAT? And you accepted?” Filia screeched, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.</p><p>“Not so loud!” Plum laughed along, unbuttoning her skirt and settling back into her comfy sofa in the snug, sighing at the relief of not having to hold in her tummy anymore. “But of course I accepted- if someone paid you a bunch to lie around and eat you’d do it!”</p><p>“I don’t think I would, Plum- don’t forget what the crystal’s gonna do to your tits-“</p><p>She looked down at them and shrugged. “I mean, I have to carry ‘em around, they might as well earn their keep. He said they might be a bit achy as they get bigger, but who doesn’t want bigger boobs?”</p><p>“Your boobs are already bigger boobs, Plum. You’ll topple over.”</p><p>“And they’ll shrink down after anyway-“</p><p>“-the weight you gain won’t come off so easily though.” Filia interrupted. </p><p>She pouted. “But think of all the good food I get to eat to get there... he fed me so good at lunch, there was this succulent crab, and then chicken, and just the most decadent chocolate pudding...” she trailed off, rubbing her tummy. </p><p>Filia looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You’re so into this, aren’t you? I know you, Plum- you’ve been into it all along.”</p><p>Plum blushed and fidgeted with the open buttons on her skirt. “No!” She said, too quickly. “I just like food! And like eating so I don’t mind gaining weight for the thing-“</p><p>“Yeah? These pounds say otherwise!” Filia poked her muffin-top, clearly visible through her loose shirt.</p><p>“I just said I like food! Can’t a girl just let herself go for a few months and not be psychoanalysed about it?”</p><p>“Look at this gut- you got so carried away trying to impress him, didn’t you?” She went in for another poke, and Plum slapped her hand away, laughing despite herself. </p><p>“I did not!”</p><p>“Then button your skirt back up!”</p><p>“I can’t! I’ll bust it!”</p><p>“Own your shit, girl!” Filia was screeching with laughter- this must be payback for all the times Plum had tormented her over the years, and she regretted every decision that had led her to this moment- batting her friends hands away as she tried to poke her poor tummy again until she admitted it. </p><p>“He just- a hot guy looked me in the eye and told me he needed me bigger- and I said okay. What would you do if there was a spicy man saying he wanting to do things to your body?” </p><p>“I’d tell him to fuck off if I wasn’t at least a little into it.” Filia said, and elbowed her. “Good for you. Getting to play naughty games all day. I hope you have fun- you know I’d never want you to do something weird like that just to make the guild money, and I know Rascha wouldn’t either.”</p><p>“You literally send me out to battle deadly monsters every day just for money.”</p><p>“That’s different- you signed up for that and I know you can handle yourself!”</p><p>“Yeah- well I’ve signed up for this too, now.” She said, looking down at herself.</p><p>“I guess we’ll see how you turn out on the other side, Mm? We can always keep you working on seals and woven spells until you lose it again, don’t worry. And you can give Maz that intensive fire training you’ve been meaning to give him.”</p><p>“I’m not going to get so fat I can’t work- just like-“ she held a hand out. “Probably a few more inches. I might have to borrow some larger armour.”</p><p>“That’s still a lot more to carry.”</p><p>Plum shrugged. “I carry all this around already- I’m sure I can handle a stone or two more until I lose it again.</p><p>“You sure it’s gonna come off? You’ve been saying you’ll start dieting for months now, Miss ‘don’t worry about getting a new chestplate, I’ll be back in the old one soon.’”</p><p>If Plum could have gotten any redder, she would have.  “If it impacts my work, it’ll have to go. I’ve got a life to run- even if I kind of maybe slightly enjoy being chubby just a little bit.” She said, trailing off and not meeting her friend’s eyes. </p><p>Filia’s eyes gleamed with victory and she patted her on the shoulder. “Okay. I’ll clear your time with Rascha- I  can give that Tree Mantis gig to Sweetie- it’ll be good for her to stretch herself.”</p><p>“Mm, she’s come on so well lately, she can take a beast that size by now.” </p><p>“You’ll still have to do a moor beast seen by Heyworth I just got a request for though- all of our hard hitters are busy tomorrow.” </p><p>“Tomorrow?”</p><p>“Even I wouldn’t send you out to fight when you can hardly breathe, even if you do deserve it for getting so stuffed you can’t work.”</p><p>“Maybe if I had a little nap first-“ </p><p>“Nuh-uh, you are going to get changed and do some strength drills with the kids this afternoon.”</p><p>“Noooooo, don’t make me!”</p><p>“You’re on strength drills today, then beast hunting tomorrow, and then after that I’ll let you off lightly and you can be on tutoring the rest of the week. That way you can have your food party and get ready for tall, scholarly and handsome. Sound like a fair trade?” </p><p>“Strength drills.” She grumbled, sliding down off the seat and onto the floor, then rolling onto her knees and crawling a few paces before she could be bothered to haul herself up on the doorframe and get back to her room.</p><p>—-</p><p>Thankfully, strength drills didn’t pose much more trouble than they usually did - at least, they didn’t once she’d changed into some bigger trousers borrowed from Jacqui the half-ox.</p><p>She was training with the two newbies today, since everyone else was out and Filia busy negotiating contracts over the farspeaker. </p><p>At the moment, they had a fifteen year old and a seventeen year old staying at the guild, both girls, both relatively new to magic, and both somehow managed to lazy and over enthusiastic about everything at the same time, the way teenagers were. Neither of them particularly liked strength drills.</p><p>But then, without strength drills, where would any of them be, Plum reminded herself as she struggled to keep up the pace of her sit-ups with her bloated gut in the way. You can’t skimp on the basics and then expect to be a battle mage if you can’t even run for a long enough time while you’re fighting to outpace a monster, or not be able to lift heavy shit when you need to or put some physical power behind a magical attack.</p><p>At the two hundred mark, she let herself fall back with a hand on her stomach and breathe, waiting for the newbies to catch up. “Come on girls, I know both of you can make it to a hundred.” She said, breathing heavily.</p><p>“I can but I don’t want toooo!” Cassie whined.</p><p>“Tough.” She heaved herself up and went to hold the younger girl’s feet down. “Where are you at, hon?”</p><p>“Eighty two.”</p><p>That’s great- you’re nearly there. Then you can go get a drink. Sweetie, how about you?” </p><p>“Ninety- ugh- ninety seven-“</p><p>“Cracking.” </p><p>She watched the older girl shakily pull herself up three more times, then slump forward with her head between her knees. “Why are we suffering so much today?” </p><p>“Because I’m sure Filia is watching out the window and if I slack off she’ll come down on us all like a ton of bricks.”</p><p>Cassie slumped back, finally. “Well done.” She patted her knee and stood up. “I’ll go get you guys some water.” </p><p>She sighed as she refilled their canteens from the tap in the corner of the yard. Both girls had come a long way, true, but if they couldn’t keep up with her even when she was weighed down like this? Sweetie especially needed to up her game if she expected to be sent on proper missions.</p><p>Maybe it wasn’t fair to compare them to herself since she had a good seven years more training under her belt, but still. Monsters and bandit mages wouldn’t go easy on someone just because they were  inexperienced. </p><p>She set the younger two to sparring and got started on some weights, grunting at the extra pressure on her stomach as she bent down to lift the heavy bar. It was going to be a long afternoon for all of them.</p><p> </p><p>—-</p><p>At least the moor-beast was no trouble. </p><p>Well. It wasn’t even a moor-beast, in the end- Plum easily hacked apart the sentient, shambling mass of enchanted gorse that the villagers of Heyworth had evidently thought was a moor-beast, and headed back to the little hamlet with the enchantment that had animated it safely bottled and stowed in her pack in less than an hour after she’d set off. </p><p>It was a lovely day to be out on the plains. She felt like she was properly in the middle of nowhere as she walked, with nothing but rubble from ruined buildings and nature slowly reclaiming them for miles- even though she knew the capitol was barely an hour away, just hidden in the deep gorge of the river Swan. Plum could even see the uneven  mound of towers of the university in the distance- it was almost as prominent on the horizon as the soaring white rose-topped towers of the New Castle. </p><p>The hot afternoon sun beat down on her, and she was sorely tempted to take her armour off as she slogged her way back to the village- the beast had taken her quite a way from the road, and clambering around the rubble and all the brambles and trees growing amongst it made for slow going. In the end, she kept it on mostly for protection against the brambles. </p><p>Broken statutes stared up at her under nettles and Gorse. And even creepier- every now and then she’d just see a pale stone hand or foot poking out of a clump of heather- which were easily mistaken for a person buried under the rubble at first glance. Even though she’d been exploring the ruined moor ever since she was a child, it was still a little unnerving, and even in the bright summer sun, the place did feel ominous. She could see why folk said it was haunted. </p><p>Every so often her steps would ring hollow as she’d walk over an old basement and she’d have to step off, sharpish if she didn’t want to end up at the bottom of a caved-in basement thanks to floorboards that had had two hundred years in the rain to rot. It brought to mind exploring the forbidden ruins when she was a child, excitedly banging on the ground searching for an unexplored old house. That had turned into going as a teen with her friends just because it was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, giggling with embarrassment if they came across any weird old-world artefacts and scrawling their names across the wall wherever they went. </p><p>She had half a mind to go exploring again sometime. Not that she had any delusions about finding any treasure, nor did she have a secret boyfriend she wasn’t allowed to see- she just felt nostalgic for it. She hadn’t been down to the lower levels in years, only went over it on her way to somewhere else, these days.  </p><p>She was almost back to the main road, and the thought of safe, steady ground must have made her complacent as she edged around the base of a half- decayed wall, because the next thing she knew she put her foot down on a tree root that couldn’t support her weight and went crashing down through the floor to the basement below. </p><p>She swore and rubbed her bum- it hadn’t hurt- she’d always been very sturdily build even before these past couple of months. A bruised arse wouldn’t kill her.</p><p>She picked herself up and blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness outside her little impromptu skylight. It was just an old house, looked like, but still, instead of just floating herself back up, she hesitated, and then stepped forward into the gloom.</p><p>The damp, mouldy smell of the encroaching ground hit her with a wave of nostalgia as she padded about the abandoned house. Thieves had already taken everything worth taking, of course, leaving only mouldy piles of fabric and broken furniture. There were also damp sheets of paper strewn across the floor where the books had been torn apart- they were often bound in beautiful embossed leather and inset with gold, so thieves usually took the covers, and any particularly saucy pages or the erotic books of prints were sold to collectors - and probably burnt since, if anyone was caught with them.</p><p>The interior decor was even creepier than the smashed fragments of stone above. The shuddered and picked up a cup on the side that was formed out of a hand, stretched out and deformed to make a useable vessel but the nails and wrinkles in the skin were still so intricately detailed it almost looked real. She put it back- folk said it was bad luck to steal from the ruins, and even though she wasn’t superstitious, she wasn’t keen to test the spirits possessiveness of their belongings for a weird cup.</p><p>She wandered deeper into the house, or maybe she’d come through into different houses and hadn’t noticed as she aimlessly looked about her. Her boots squelched on the soaking, rotting carpets, and she disturbed smaller beasts that scurried away from her and her magic light. </p><p>She gingerly sat down on a chair, formed out of yet another misshapen human statue. The big hands on the ends of the chairs armrests turned inward, like they were holding someone. It felt... lonely, somehow. She put her hand over the stone one and stroked it with her thumb. </p><p>It was weird coming back to the ruins as an adult- whereas before it had been a playground of sorts, now all she could think about was what must these people have been like- if your chairs were people, did that change how you think of real people? It was unnerving. </p><p>She stood back up, patting the stone hand goodbye, and set back off rather more quickly than she’d walked in. She wasn’t going to find any lost treasure this close to the city, and it wasn’t worth exploring just one of thousands of abandoned old houses. </p><p>It was a relief to get back out into the sunlight and fresh air.</p><p>—-</p><p>Heyworth’s village leader seemed doubtful as Plum explained herself, coming back with no proof of a kill bar the hex bottle from the enchanted gorse. What a pain- they wouldn’t be getting much pay for this, if any. It was hard not to feel disheartened as villager after villager all came to animatedly tell her they knew a moor beast when they saw one. Even an old witch stepped forward and gravely shook her head at her. </p><p>“I saw it myself, child, and it was no petty enchantment.” </p><p>“Then why couldn’t I track it? Why is there no upturned earth anywhere near where you told me it was? I really think you must be mistaken- giant piles of malevolent earth aren’t easy to hide!”</p><p>“I hope you are right, my dear, but perhaps you should stay the night to be cautious. You don’t want to be travelling and caught out when the beast is at it’s most powerful.” </p><p>She sighed and agreed to waste her money on a room and board for the night- at least thanks to the experiment she had a little less reason to worry about dead ends like this now she knew that there was definite money in her future, and the sun would probably have set before she made it back home. Or at least, it would be dark because of all of these late summer thunderclouds that seemed to be rolling in- it was still bright but the sky was inky grey. Maybe the ominous vibes she’d been feeling earlier had just been the air pressure. </p><p>She thanked her for the advice and headed to the inn in town- accompanied by the elderly lady- Maggie, she was called- who despite persistently calling her “child” and “sweetheart” and even “little one” when she was clearly a full-grown woman in battle armour, was nice enough.</p><p>It was a relief to get changed for dinner- her armour really was getting too tight for her. It was hard to care when faced with the prospect of good food and<br/>
a warm bed to lie down in out of the rain, and mindful of what Gordie had said, she got seconds as she chatted to the older witch about techniques for her woven enchantments.</p><p>“A healthy appetite on you, lass.” Maggie said wryly as Plum’s dessert arrived- and she flushed as she reached for the sweet cake and rice dumplings. </p><p>“I’m- I wouldn’t usually be this greedy- I’m trying to do some arcane distilling.”</p><p>The woman’s eyebrows raised. “Oh my. Haven’t heard that one in a while- it went out of fashion when I was just a young ‘un like you. Isn’t it illegal these days?” </p><p>“I’m going to be studying it at the university. We’ve got permits- we want to try to figure out how it works so we can replicate it some other way.” </p><p>Her companion whistled. “Well. That’s nice to hear they’re taking an interest in the old arts. Nothing like a properly made potion.”</p><p>“Do you know anything about it?”</p><p>“Nothing that’d be a help with casting, but I do remember that it was a darn sight more powerful than the watered-down swill they try to sell you these days.” Maggie said, holding up her beer mug in a toast. “Ain’t nothing like it- if you go into business, I’ll be a loyal customer. You’ve got the figure for it, certainly. I’m a little jealous.”</p><p>Luckily - or perhaps more unluckily - their conversation was cut off by a distant howl that was definitely a moor-beast. </p><p>Plum’s hair stood on end at the gutteral scraping howl of air rushing out of torn up rock and enchantments and rage, and she ran outside into the rain. </p><p>Oh lords, there was dozens of them. Thankfully, she still kept her sword at her hip and she unsheathed it, moving towards the beasts. How did a nest of moor-beasts creep up on the town undetected? </p><p>“Get help- call the guild-“ she yelled at Maggie over her shoulder, and shot up a flare without thinking by about it. </p><p>The nearest one turned on her. Spirits- she leapt at it- the massive creature of peat and moss was like a craggy hill with stumpy, crumbling legs and horrible glowing red eyes- Plum was faster than it but it would be devastating if she was caught by its flailing limbs- she was weighed down by all the dinner she’d eaten but she screamed the enchantment for her sword and slashed blindly at the creature, then scrambled up onto its back and ran towards its head as it shook and crumbled under her- to deal the finishing blow between its eyes, right where it’s consciousness was most concentrated. </p><p>She launched off onto the next one. Don’t think about how many there are, just act- get them fast before they can wear you down, don’t think about how fucking many there are, don’t think about how there’s a bloody dozen of them at least and you don’t stand a chance without help- she stumbled, and scraped all down her side but rolled to her feet, cursing herself- why had she taken her armour off for dinner, just so she could stuff her face and now she was unprotected and bloated and slow- she slashed again and leapt off the dying creature to a nearby roof. She slipped on the damp tiles and got another scrape for her trouble, on her hands this time.</p><p>She got to her feet shakily and looked around. That was two down- there were so many of them- some of the villagers were fighting as best as they could but more were being dragged out of their houses or running blindly into danger- spirits- her legs were shaking but she sprinted from house to house and then on to the back of a long, rocky one like an overgrown ferret made of earth. </p><p>She nearly made it- but then at the last second, it noticed her and bucked her off with a flick of its tail and she was sent flying- she hit the ground and slid, scraping all down her front and why oh why hadn’t she worn that armour- some of the buttons had come off too and the freezing cold rain stung against all the grazes on her chest and arms- not that there was time to think about that now- the thing was looking down at her- a maw forming in the packed earth as it began its descent- she threw a blast of ice at it and rolled to her feet- headed under it and slashed up at its neck- it worked but she was pelted with crumbling dirt as it fell to pieces around her. </p><p>Three, that made three, how many were left- one by the church, one by the village leaders house- one over by a mill- or was that two- she stood and panted, trying to get her breath and work out which would be easiest to take down next- the hillock with rows of feet but no visible arms- surely- but it was so far away- should she try to take out something closer? </p><p>Her decision was made for her- a smash behind her made her jump and spin around in time to see a particularly big slab of sentient, vengeful moor step through a house like it was nothing - fuck- how could she take this one- it had seen her already. She slid down the tiles and ran around behind the houses, shoving her wet hair out of her face. </p><p>Get round it- find a weak spot- she ducked into an alley to get close and got under its armpit and slashed up- it wasn’t the best attack from her shaking arms but its leg tore and crumbled and it crashed to the ground, trying to limp on the stump left behind. </p><p>Plum was knocked over yet again- this time she didn’t even feel it- and crawled frantically to its neck and finally sliced down into its core. The thing thudded to the ground, and she lay on top of it, trying to get up again.</p><p>Her gasps for breath were more like screams at this point- everything hurt, she was running out of magic, and going numb in the freezing cold rain, bruised and grazed and bloody- she cried out when she saw how many of them were left and tried to will herself back up- she could do one more, surely- just one more- </p><p>And then a portal opened a few streets away. Two dragon riders came through- and some warriors, it looked like- she burst into tears and cheered as they felled the largest beast- then seemed to split up- they seemed to be efficient, thank goodness they got here. </p><p>Her vision swam and she let herself fall flat onto the felled beast, shaking as the adrenaline and fear caught up with her. Her mind was racing- how had so many beasts got so far from the heart of the moor undetected- and why had they all attacked here?</p><p>She wiped her face and pulled herself together- at least enough to stagger to her feet and thank whoever it was. </p><p>It was scholars, she realised. She recognised a few of them, even- there was Raihan from Lunch yesterday with a majestic green dragon, as well as Opal, “the Grandmother of tricks and charms” herself. She limped over, meaning to use Raihan to introduce herself, forgetting what a state she was in at that point in time.</p><p>“Plum?” Oh- it was Gordie. Maybe he’d been the one to make the portal. </p><p>She smiled at him a bit dazedly as he grabbed her shoulders and tilted her chin up to look at her pupils, then started checking her over. “Are you alright? What on earth happened to you?”</p><p>“Just- fightin’.” She said, a tad slurred. Blast- the shock was wearing off and now her legs felt like they were going to give out- she didn’t want to act like some kind of wilting flower delicate little maiden but-</p><p>“Here-“ Gordie pulled off his cloak to wrap around her and steadied her again. </p><p>She numbly noticed that her tits were practically falling out of her ruined shirt but she was too tired to care, leaning into his arm. “I was here because they told me there was <i> one</i>moor beast. Couldn’t handle ‘em all.” </p><p>“Well, you’re safe now. They got the rest of them. Let’s get you sat down and sorted out.” </p><p>She let herself be led over to the group of people huddled around the base of the church- it looked like the university had sent some healers as well as scholars so Gordie sat her down to wait. She kept leaning on him and he kept rubbing her arm. He smelled nice, and his shoulder was comfy, so what was the harm in cuddling up to him a little longer... she’d been injured, she had the perfect excuse! And to be honest, she was still feeling a little shaky as the sharp pain of her injuries turned to a deeper throbbing that was probably bruises coming up. </p><p>She pulled her borrowed cloak around her and nuzzled in closer, then sighed. Time to come clean. </p><p>“If you give me a minute, I can probably heal myself, to save your people time.” She said. “We’ve got ingredients at the guild and I’m not really hurt, just shaken up a bit.”</p><p>“You may be one hell of a mage to take down four of them at once, but I’m not going to make you heal yourself when you’re exhausted already.”</p><p>“Filia can do it. Or one of the others.”</p><p>He hummed. “Okay. Let’s get you home.” He nudged her off of him to a vial from his pocket and scattered citrine dust onto the ground, then traced the travel rune in the dirt with his foot. “Come on.”</p><p>He actually had to lift her to her feet- her stupid legs were still too shaky- and then she was stumbling straight into him, thrown off balance by the warp.</p><p>He caught her, because of course he did, and then shifted her to lean on him again with an arm wrapped around her waist as the Guild’s entranceway swum unsteadily around her.</p><p>Sweetie looked up from the front desk and gaped at them. “Plum- what happened to you- FILIA!” She yelled up the stairs. “FILIA! PLUM’S HURT!” </p><p>“I’m not that bad, hon. I just need a bath and a strong potion.” </p><p>“Which way’s the bathroom? I’ll take her.” Gordie said, then bent down to scoop her up into his arms before she could protest- not that she would protest, his arms were very comfortable. She barely had the chance to snuggle into his soft chest before she was put back down on a chair in the bathroom, and he was smoothing her hair aside and patting her shoulder as Sweetie hovered worriedly. “I’m so sorry Plum, but I shouldn’t have left the site- are you going to be okay now?”</p><p>Sweetie seemed to pull herself together enough to get the bath started and gather some ingredients off the shelves. “She’ll be okay. Filia is the best healer this side of the Swanmouth.” </p><p>“That’s good to hear.”</p><p>“I told you it’s just some grazes. Go back to work, I’m fine. I’ll see you next week.” Plum flapped a hand at him. “Thank you for the lift home. And the actual lift up the stairs.” </p><p>“Any time- I’m just glad you’re not hurt.” He sighed. “Okay, I’ve got to get back. See you- I’ll see myself out.”</p><p>“See you.”</p><p>She and Sweetie both stared at him on the way out, then the younger girl turned on her, eyes alight with the promise of new gossip. “Who was <i>that?</i>”</p><p>“That was a man from the university. I’m going to be assisting him with some research next week.” She said. She still hadn’t figured out what to tell the younger girls- they’d find out eventually, of course, but... it seemed too embarrassing.</p><p>“Is he single?” </p><p>“He’s too old for you so don’t even ask!” </p><p>“But not for <i>you!</i>”</p><p>“Don’t go there, Sweets.” </p><p>“But you look so cute together- he’s perfect for you!”</p><p>“You saw him for like ten seconds!” She groaned and reached down to start unlacing her boots.</p><p>“Let me get those for you- and then I’ll go get Filia, wherever she’s gone.”</p><p>“No need.” The woman herself said, backing into the room with a tray of healing ingredients and tea and shoving the door closed with her bum.</p><p>“What on earth did you do to yourself this time, Plum.”</p><p>“Thanks for running to the rescue just now.” She said dryly, wincing as Sweetie pulled off a boot and her knee twinged.</p><p>“If it was that bad, you’d have been yelling.” Filia shrugged. </p><p>“What if I’d passed out from blood loss and was bleeding to death in poor Sweetie’s innocent young hands?”</p><p>“You’d still be yelling. Or the man who got you here would have been yelling. And besides- I was making you some tea, which I’m assuming you want?”</p><p>“Maybe.” She admitted. </p><p>“You can go now, Ti.” Filia said, and the girl scuttled off- presumably to immediately spread it everywhere that her senior Mage had produced a man from somewhere that was both strong enough and willing to pick her up. </p><p>Filia turned to the bath and uncorked the bottle of healing potion, casting a critical eye over Plum before pouring a measure into the water and resealing it. Then she began with the dry ingredients- powdered shell, fruit rinds, pinches of earth, herbs... the room began to fill with thick steam and Plum breathed it in, before busying herself pouring some tea. </p><p>“You know you sent me because they’d seen one moor beast?”</p><p>“Yes, I do recall.” </p><p>“There ended up being about ten.”</p><p>Filia startled and spun around. “<i>ten?” </i></p><p>
  <i>“I told them to call for backup but I think they just went straight to the university and didn’t bother calling you.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Spirits, I’m glad they did. Are you sure there were ten?” </i>
</p><p>
 “Well no, but I managed to kill four, and there were plenty left to occupy the scholars. If anything ten might be on the low side.”
</p><p>
 “Why were there so many beasts so far from the heart of the moor?” Filia asked incredulously. 
</p><p>
 “No bloody idea.” 
</p><p>
 “Hopefully the scholars will find out.” She straightened up. “Right. You get in there and stew for a while and you’ll be right in no time.”
</p><p>
 “Thanks, Fi.” She hauled herself to her feet, still holding Gordie’s cloak around her.
</p><p>
“You alright to get undressed on your own or are still shaky?”
</p><p>
“I’ll yell if I need you, Fi.”
</p><p>
 “Now what were we just saying about you yelling?”
</p><p>
 Filia shook her head, and left her to peel herself out of her bloodied clothes on her own.
</p><p>
She took a deep sniff of Gordie’s cloak before she took it off, relishing the scent of citrine and musk. She folded the cloak neatly, and then tore off her ruined clothes (literally- both the top and the leggings sticking to the grazes and it wasn’t worth saving them. Then she stood over the drain to wash most of the dirt and dried blood away before lowering her aching body into the bath with a relieved hiss.
</p><p>
That was better. There was something numbing in Filia’s herbal mix, and it and the other ingredients got to work straight away as she settled in for a long soak in the enchanted water.
</p><p>
 By a happy coincidence, Filia came in to check on her just as she’d finished the pot of tea and was half wondering about asking for some more- and she must be an angel, not an elf, because she came with a new pot without even being asked.
</p><p>
 “How are you doing?”
</p><p>
“Great. So much better than earlier.” She lifted her arm out of the water to show how the deepest cuts were healing- not scabbing over, just knitting back together like it had never happened.
</p><p>
Filia tutted at her, put the fresh pot of tea down and handed her a bowl of pomegranate seeds.
</p><p>
 “Here. Have some.”
</p><p>
 She ate, and shivered as Filia poured another generous dollop of healing potion in to the bathwater.
</p><p>
 It was so soothing. Between the hot water, the numbing potion, the full pot of tea and the last bit of fullness from her dinner, she felt heavy and blissfully content as she nibbled on the fruit.
</p><p>
 “I wonder how much of this is superstition and how much is like- maybe it’s one ingredient for an arcane casting that people half remember.” She wondered, and balanced the empty bowl on her tummy just because she could- it rose out of the water in a proud little hillock and it seemed a better place to put it than the edge of the bath.
</p><p>
 “Ask your man. He’d be the one to know.” Filia took the bowl and asked if there was anything else she wanted.
</p><p>
“No, I’m okay. You can stop worrying now, Fi, I’m fine.”
</p><p>
 Filia just made a face at her and shut the door. 
</p><p>
 Plum was well enough now that she could play a little as she drank another cup of tea, petting her belly and marvelling at how bloated she was. There was just something so intoxicating about being full like this, replete and contented and huge and so, so horny. She’d always felt it, always got a guilty, desperate sort of pleasure from her fluffy tummy and soft tits, always had a hard time staying relatively trim when eating the extra pounds on just felt so <i> good and soft and welcome...</i> and this year, after glutting herself for a full week at the solstice festival like usual, she just... hadn’t bothered to keep the weight off. She couldn’t say she’d regretted it- she’d never enjoyed her own body so much as she did now she was a few stone heavier.
</p><p>
 This experiment really couldn’t have fallen to a more willing participant- she couldn’t wait to see how glorious she’d feel when she was that big... her pussy clenched just thinking about it. 
</p><p>
 She let go of her belly with one hand to tease herself, sliding her fingertips around her slick labia and just exploring, not sure if she wanted to commit to getting herself off yet or keep herself on the edge.
</p><p>
She ended up playing on and off a while longer, and fell into a contented doze in the bath about three-quarters through her second pot of tea. She didn’t wake until Filia knocked and poked her head back in. 
</p><p>
 “You’ve got a dashing visitor from the university.”
</p><p>
She yawned and sat up. “Really?”
</p><p>
 “It’s the man who came here to post your notice the other day. Is it your scholar?”
</p><p>
  “Is he blonde?”
</p><p>
 “Yes- big and stocky, with glasses?”
</p><p>
“That would be him.” She grinned. “Put up the screen and send him in, would you? I can’t possibly get out before I’m done healing.”
</p><p>
 “Vixen!” Filia scolded, but did as she asked with a wink.
</p><p>
 The screen gave her an advantage when poor Gordie came back into the bathroom- she could see through it but he couldn’t thanks to the one-sided weave. But he still knew that she was naked in the bath on the other side, and she relished in the fact.
</p><p>
 He was blushing like a tomato again. “Plum- I wanted to check in on you- and I’ve got some lavender and ochre for the bruising- I don’t know what you’ve already got in there but- you know. Especially the ochre will help. How are you doing?”
</p><p>
 She turned over and leant up on the edge of the bath. “I’m doing well, thank you. That’s very kind but Filia’s got me almost done already.”
</p><p>
 He didn’t seem convinced. “Are you sure? You just nearly got clobbered by twelve moor beasts.”
</p><p>
 “Mm- It was a close one, but I do this a lot.” 
</p><p>
 “You do?”
</p><p>
 “Mm-Hm. I’m something of a battle mage.”
</p><p>
 Her stomach made a noise, and she grinned. “I only got so banged-up because I’d taken off my armour to fit in more food at dinner, you know. So it’s kind of your fault.”
</p><p>
 He paled. “I am so sorry-“
</p><p>
 “I’m teasing.” She interrupted him. “I’m fine. I took out four of them by myself with my tits hanging out- I can look after myself.”
</p><p>
 He ignored that comment. “You’ve got to look after yourself a bit better- I need you healthy for this trial, not squashed under a sentient hillock.”
</p><p>
 “Mm, I’ll try.”
</p><p>
 “That’s why I’m here- I’ve cleared starting the prep for the experiment early, if you want. So you can come to the university and stay safe and un-mountained.”
</p><p>
 She hummed and considered. “I’ve still got a few things to finish off for the guild...”
</p><p>
 “Like?”
</p><p>
 “Nothing dangerous, just some fetch-quests and stuff.” Truthfully, she needed to go shopping for some decent outfits that had a bit more room in the waist, but she did have a few actual things to do as well. 
</p><p>
 “Properly not dangerous?”
</p><p>
 “Properly not dangerous. I can come in day after tomorrow?”
</p><p>
 “Alright. Be safe.” He turned and made to leave, but she stopped him. 
</p><p>
 “Oh- Gordie? your cloak is over here. Come and fetch it if you want.” 
</p><p>
 He hesitated, then padded over to behind the screen. She grinned at him and he gave a half grimace back- oh, how cute- he was trying his best not to look at her- held the cape in front of himself and stared pointedly at it and nothing else.  
</p><p>
 “Be a sweetheart and pop those ingredients in the bath since you’re over here.”
</p><p>
 He looked over and raised his eyebrows at her. 
</p><p>
 She just sank down a little and
chuckled at him.
</p><p>
Gordie sighed, strode over and balanced the lavender sprig on her head- then chucked the lump of ochre at the water behind her. “Listen here. You-“ He bopped her on the nose. -are my trial subject. So don’t go acting cute because it’s not going to happen.”
</p><p>
“You sure?” She sank down and squashed her damp cleavage against the edge of the bath to make sure he got a good view. The lavender sprig fell off her head and tickled her back where it settled. 
</p><p>
 “Positive. There’s this thing called ethics you might have heard of, and rules to follow when trying this kind of thing.”
</p><p>
 “Even though this experiment is pretty much just you doing illicit things to my body anyway? What’s a few more?”
</p><p>
“Controlled things, with proper documentation, and in a safe environment within the ethics guidelines provided by the university.”
</p><p>
She huffed. “Ugh. I mean we technically haven’t started yet-“
</p><p>
  “You want my dick or the twelve gold a week? Because you’re only getting one.”
</p><p>
  She sank back into the water and groaned. “What about after?”
</p><p>
  “Not even going to answer that.” He patted her head and turned on his heel. “See you when I see you.”
</p><p>
  She watched him go for the second time that evening- man. What a waste of a fantastic arse. She sighed and sank into the tingling water, turning back over. 
</p><p>
  The moment he was out the door she slid two fingers into herself to let the enchanted water rush in- oh, that hit the spot. She dove deeper, stroking and writhing up against her own hand, her other one grabbing for her breast and kneading- she  didn’t have enough bloody hands to play with everything but it didn’t take her long to get off after that exchange- just the thought of it was so hot- she imagined him rolling up his sleeves and leaning over her, methodically massaging and poking and thoroughly examining her body, inside and out- pinching her nipples and shaking her heavy belly, then fingering her and rolling her clit remorselessly- or maybe- he’d just come back and say he changed his mind- he’d grab her out of the tub then run back to her room to rail her into the mattress while she was still damp- imagine all that weight on top of her, slamming into her and filling her up- or maybe she’d pull him off balance into the bath and they’d splash all the water onto the floor as he fucked her- she grit her teeth and tried not to wail as she pushed down on her clit with the heel of her hand as it throbbed- and then she sank back into the water, panting as she came down. Oh man. It was going to be delicious.
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Look. I know a real scientist would have to find a new volunteer for a  trial after she came on to him like that but a) any scientist worth anything in the real world wouldnt carry out a trial on a sample size of one person and b) this is just a smut fic so it’s mostly just a flimsily thrown together excuse for some *yearning.*</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>And so Plum found herself once again walking up to the intimidating University building and wondering about her life choices, but this time with a bag full of clothes and enough materials to keep her busy weaving charms while she... worked? </p><p>It was something she was being employed to do, she supposed. </p><p>She’d ended up wearing her nicest clothes, even though that just made her look even chubbier right now, spilling out of the tight corset and her belly pressing up against the tight fitted panel at the waistline of her skirt, but she still liked how she looked in the outfit, and got the feeling that she wouldn’t have the chance to wear it again for a while. She smoothed down her hair and went in. </p><p>She was met again, by another student who apparently took one of Gordie’s classes, and her bags were placed on a warp and whisked away spirits knew where with magic, as the boy excitedly babbled at her about the properties of the amethyst she was going to be working with. Apparently the young man had tried and he’d not done very well but it was “crazy powerful.”</p><p>They wound their way along the corridors- he handed her a printed map, which didn’t help much- the university’s floor plan was uneven and each tower seemed to have a different ceiling height so keeping track of which story they were on was harder than it should be as they went up and down shallow flights of stairs every minute, past classrooms full of aurora and staircases crammed in next to each other leading in opposite directions, through covered bridges between buildings, through a glass- topped conservatory filled with glowing mushrooms- until finally things started to look a little more familiar and they turned into the Alchemy wing. </p><p>Apparently, they had arrived just after the day’s citrine portal- Gordie met her, dripping wet with a towel around his neck and his jacket unbuttoned, shaking her hand and beaming at her. That would be her in a few weeks, she thought, with a zing of excitement. Walking around all big and shameless full of Crystal. </p><p>Thankfully, Gordie was warm and polite- she’d not made it too awkward by coming on to him the other day. </p><p>Although she doubted it be easy keeping herself on-task and professional- when there was a handsome man in front of her, soaking wet from the rain, his clothes so sodden she could see his arms flex as he pushed damp hair out of his eyes. She should do him a favour and dry him off- she could easily do it with just a touch on his shoulder and a gentle push against his aura- but it would be more fun to warm up her hands and run them all over him, drying the water as she went.</p><p>Unfortunately, her guide did it the sensible way before she got the chance. “Thanks, Mick.” Gordie said to the boy- goodness, was she going to be expected to remember all these students names? She could barely keep track of the thirty four guild members! </p><p>She was shown around the lab in more detail, and introduced to Charles (Chuck or Chucky for short), the course mascot, a dopey little rock turtle that opened one eye at Gordie’s cooing but then just went back to sleep, even as he picked him up out of his tank and showed the little critter off. </p><p>She patted its head dubiously- it was kind of cute, as much as a lump of crystal with weird, thick noodley legs and beady little eyes could be. “Don’t you get worried someone’s going to eat him by accident if you just leave his tank in the lab like this?” She said, as Chuck retreated back into his crystalline shell, looking for all the world like a sample someone left out.</p><p>Gordie gasped and held the little creature to his chest. “How could you say such a horrible thing- he’ll get nightmares! And we would never! But, uh, we are very careful to keep him in his tank.” He admitted, putting him instead into his breast pocket. </p><p>“Keeping him in his tank, huh?”</p><p>“He’s coming to lunch with us- it’s autumn veg salad and it’s his favourite.” </p><p>She shook her head and tried not to smile as a noodley head peeped out  of the pocket.</p><p>“First though, we’ve got to get you examined- I’ll take you to the medical tower and then we can feed this boy his roasted squash.” </p><p>Thankfully, the medical tower wasn’t too far away, or at least- it wasn’t longer than their argument over whether Chuck really did have a favourite food or if Gordie was just humanising him. </p><p>She had an exam from a stern female doctor, which she was only slightly disappointed that Gordie waited outside for, and then it was on to lunch. </p><p>And what a lunch it was. “Autumn vegetable salad” turned out to be crispy roasted veg piled high with a dollop of creamy dressing and served with buttery bread rolls and soup, which did perk Charles right up and he managed to eat a surprising amount of roasted  squash, making Plum wonder how it all fit into his fist-sized rocky shell. They were joined by another member of staff called Kabu as they were finishing- he was a rather gruff middle-aged pyromancer, who melted into a puddle at the sight of Charles- cooing at him even more babyishly than Gordie had and letting him scurry along his arm to his shoulder and curl up by his neck. Apparently he kept salamander wyrms as pets and was charmed by all things small and dopey-looking.</p><p>She took seconds of the bread and soup, not missing Gordie beaming at her as she ate, and then was shown up to her temporary room in the staff wing.</p><p>“It’s a good job I’m used to walking- we must have done a mile in here already!”</p><p>“Probably,” he agreed. “It’s good to keep me in shape, though. Relatively in shape.” He said, shrugging at her as they rounded the top of a spiral staircase. “Trust me, you’ll have thighs of steel after walking these stairs for a month, no matter how much you eat.”</p><p>She bit back a comment about his thighs after staring at his bum the whole way up the stairs. It definitely hadn’t looked as jiggly as she’d thought it would be, although in the thick fabric of his trousers it was hard to tell. Oh, for a quick squeeze of that thing as she pulled him into her lap to play with him... she really needed to stop leering at him if they were going to be working together. It wasn’t his fault he was so pretty. </p><p>The staff quarters were a little more run-down than the rest of the building she’d seen so far, but run-down in a way that seemed they hadn’t had the chance to replace as many of the interior fittings when the inside of the building was renovated two hundred years ago, so the doors were all odd sizes and most of the decorative elements were weird brass inlays and swirls everywhere, all lit up in odd colours thanks to the stained glass panels in the windows. It was actually quite cozy, in a weird kind of wary. There were so many staff that it actually seemed to take up a whole turret, with a staircase in the middle and rooms laid out in circles around it in a slightly different arrangement on each uneven floor. Finally they stopped going round and round and Gordie ushered her to her room.  </p><p>“This will be you for the next month, Plum.” Gordie said, opening the door and showing her through to a cozy little room decorated in much the same old-fashioned style. It looked nice enough- a big bed and a wardrobe and dresser for her clothes, and a desk and chair. Her bags were already there, thank goodness, plus a large pile of uniforms on the dresser. </p><p>It was a lot nicer than her room at the guild, but it was going to be weird trying to sleep without the sound of Jan’s raucous snoring or Sweetie waking everyone up at three am whenever there was a meteor shower. At least the bed was soft, she thought, as she sat down on it and sank in a ways. </p><p>“My room is just the next one down if you want me.” Gordie said, pointing. “And, especially later in the experiment, please do wake me if you’re uncomfortable or you get a sudden pain late at night- we’ve got to keep you comfortable and safe at all times, even if it means cancelling the whole thing.”</p><p>She bit back a smile. “Thanks. I’ll be sure to come and get you if I <i>want</i> you.”</p><p>He rolled his eyes and tried not to grin. “Not like that! Honestly!”</p><p>“Sorry, I’ll stop.”</p><p>He shook his head and carried on. “You don’t have to wear a staff uniform, but you might want to as things go on- we’ve got you a whole heap of different sizes so you’re comfortable. And there’s some books on arcane potion making and a written outline of the experiment and our proposed timescale you might find useful.”</p><p>“There are books on arcane distilling?” Plum said incredulously, grabbing one off the pile on her desk and flicking through.</p><p>“There are a few left- and the rest are very old manuscripts I’ve translated and had copied up.”</p><p>“And I’m just allowed to read them?”</p><p>He shrugged. “We’re given a bit more leeway at the university since we’re appointed by the king to study this stuff. And it would be useless not to let you read them since you’ll be the one <i>doing </i>the arcane distilling. You’d be welcome to use the library too if you’d like.”</p><p>Plum leapt to her feet. “Really? I can just use it? Am I allowed to take notes?”</p><p>He smiled, a tad too fondly for her heart. “Sure. We don’t keep the forbidden stuff in the main library so you’re welcome to anything we have in there. I’ll get you set up.” </p><p>“Thank you- I’d love to study some new techniques!”</p><p>“Well, you’ll certainly have the time- especially when you’re just stockpiling.” He said, and then looked her critically up and down. “Which we’re going to start tomorrow, by the way. “We’ve got a lot to get through.”</p><p>That sent a jolt straight through her, even as she tried to play it off, pouting and sticking her belly out. “So my near death experience the other day was for nothing?”</p><p>He shrugged. “Not for nothing. But we need you out to here at least.” He held his hand out about six inches from her belly. </p><p>She gulped. “That’s big.” Bigger than the clothes she bought, at least. </p><p>“Think of the money.” He moved his hand away from that tantalizing future prospect and patted her shoulder. “And the food here is always divine, it’ll be easy.” </p><p>“Well, I am always a sucker for free food.” </p><p>“Come on- there’s two bathrooms per floor- let me show you on the way to the library.” </p><p>He pointed out the lotus flower in the stained glass that was apparently the old-world equivalent to a ladies and gents sign, then showed her in.</p><p>She understood why he’d been so eager to show it off as she looked around and whistled appreciatively. They had left all of the old fittings, and the effect was otherworldly.  The outer window was stained glass in blues and greens, letting multicoloured light sparkle off of brass fittings shaped like flowers, a ginormous copper bath with a frill at its lip like more petals, and brass louts flowers and lily pads rising up on metal stalks at random from the patterned tiles on the floor. </p><p>“This seems too pretty to just take a bath in.” She said, tracing the inlaid mother of Pearl on the tiles above the sink.</p><p>“It does, doesn’t it? Apparently the other rooms were even more decadent, but there was too much weird imagery everywhere. Thankfully these baths are modest enough that they left them alone.” </p><p>“You’d call this modest?”</p><p>“I mean modest as in in the communal baths there were massive statues of naked men holding up the roof instead of columns.” </p><p>“Oh. That makes more sense.”</p><p>“So- the door locks like this-“ he flicked a larger petal on the flower shaped handle and the lock clicked into place- “and there’s a cupboard in here which has fresh towels and sheets if you need more- it’s great, we get laundry done for us so all we have to do is strip the bed and put the new one on when it’s delivered.”</p><p>“Wow. Back at the guild, no one ever remembers to do their laundry unless I nag them to. And I usually end up just washing some of the younger girls’ stuff because they let it get so filthy.” She said, as they started back down the stairs. </p><p>“Is your guild only women then? I’ve only ever heard you mention girls.”</p><p>“It’s not- but it is mostly. We have Jan the wolf-man, and Rascha the guild leader’s husband sometimes comes in, but otherwise that’s it.”</p><p>“Who’s the green-haired elf? With red eyes?” He asked. </p><p>Plum’s good mood soured a little. Of course he liked her better- looking friend. “That’s Filia. She’s the secretary. Why do you ask?” </p><p>“I met her the day before yesterday and she threatened me- she said if I laid a finger on you or if the experiment went wrong she’d murder me in some very creative ways.” </p><p>Why was she oddly touched by that? “I’m sorry Gordie- don’t listen to her- she was just worried about me-“</p><p>He waved a hand. “It seems like you have good friends is what I was going to say.” </p><p>“I do.” She said. “It’s going to be weird living away from the guild for so long.”</p><p>“You’ll be able to visit if you want- you’re not a prisoner here!”</p><p>“I know. I’m looking forward to my holiday, it’s just going to be a bit strange.” </p><p>They headed off down more corridors to the library. Now she’d seen the bathroom, she was slightly wistful wandering through the oddly shaped buildings and imagining them all decorated in a similar style, instead of the plain wooden floorboards and neat plaster with a little bit of tasteful patterned coving that seemed to be the standard replacement. She’d never seen such an opulent example of old-world interior art that had survived, and it felt very different to the hollow, damp rooms of the ruined plain. As the seat of one of the most important institutions in the entire country, she could only imagine what the rest of the interiors would have looked like. </p><p>That wistful feeling extended to the library, too- it was almost as grand as the national library for which she occasionally splashed out enough money for a days entry, but this time, the imposing square bookshelves with their sensible ladders seemed at odds with the visibly asymmetrical shape of the building. </p><p>Still, just the smell of the books and the section names were enough to get her excited again. Pyromancy, cryomancy, physics, botany, potions, far-seeing, bestiaries- even alchemy- there was too much she wanted to study and she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it all in a month, but she was going to give it her best shot. </p><p>“You look like a kid in a sweet shop.” Gordie said, nudging her side. “I’ll introduce you to Allister, our head librarian.” </p><p>She tried not to let her confusion show on her face when they turned the corner and what looked like a little kid in a mask was manning the front desk, sorting index cards in a chair that looked to be specially boosted up for their height. </p><p>“Morning Alli!” Gordie said, far too loudly for a library, waving at the person.</p><p>Their head shot up, glowing eyes fixed on Gordie, and a feeling of dread filled the room. She didn’t know how he could stand it.</p><p>“Return your books, Gordon.” Came a thin, childlike voice, laced with chilly despair.</p><p>Gordie seemed to shrug this off like it was nothing. “Nice to see you too, Al. If you wouldn’t mind, I’ve got a volunteer for an experiment who’d like a temporary library pass.”</p><p>Allister looked at her and seemed to notice her for the first time, and shrank back. “Oh- in that case- I’ll just- just go and fetch the form from my office-“ the chair screeched against the floor as he slid off and all but fled.</p><p>“He’s not great with new people.” Gordie said, striding over to behind the desk and fishing out a paper from the top drawer. “Probably gone to hide, poor lad. If you don’t mind signing and putting your address down- we can leave the form for him to file later, and you can borrow on my account for today.”</p><p>An anguished wail came from behind a nearby bookcase, and Plum nearly jumped a foot in the air. </p><p>“Allister! You’ll scare someone to death one of these days!” Gordie scolded, and the dreadful masked child peeked out from behind the bookcase. </p><p>“So she’s just another book thief like you.” He said- pointing an accusing- if trembling- finger at Plum.</p><p>“I promise I’ll be a good customer, Allister.” </p><p>“I don’t trust you an inch if you’re in anyway associated with <i> him.  </i> Allister said haughtily, coming back over to take the form from Plum and fill out a pass for her. </p><p>He flinched back when she reached out to take it, and instead handed it to Gordie to pass to her, then grabbed a pile of books and ran off.</p><p>“Poor lad’s not great with girls.” Gordie explained.</p><p>“Why do you have a haunted child working in your library?”</p><p>“Ah, he’s technically not a child- I mean he is, but he’s actually nearly eighty.”</p><p>She gaped at him.</p><p>“I don’t know the deal, but apparently it’s some sort of undeath sort of thing. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”</p><p>“Oh. That’s- terrible.”</p><p>“It is. Poor little thing. He’ll come right out of his shell once you get to know him, though- he’s a regular chatterbox most of the time.</p><p>“Now- let’s grab you some books and head to dinner before we miss it.” </p><p>“You can miss dinner?”</p><p>“Yeah- they keep a pretty strict schedule. They said they’ll make an exception for you, but all they’ll do me is a round of toast and a scolding if I come begging for food at the wrong time.” </p><p>“I can’t just choose out of all these books <i>quickly! </i> How am I supposed to even decide on a subject?”</p><p>“Sure you can! Just grab a few things and come back for more later if you want something else.”</p><p>It was hard to go quickly though- she wandered a while through the charm casting section and grabbed a book on spinning, then agonised for a while over ‘beginning cryomancy’ and ‘botany for the potion maker’.” </p><p>“Come on- it’s cream cakes for pudding.” Gordie whined. “It’s getting dark out- we’re totally going to miss it.” </p><p> “I can’t decide on these two.”<br/> “Just- grab both of ‘em.“ Gordie took both books out of her hands, marched over and dumped them on Allister’s desk. She somewhat timidly added her book on spinning to the top of the pile. </p><p>“These three on my deputy book- thief’s account, please.” Gordie said, and Allister glared at him as he stamped the insides.</p><p>“Don’t call her that- it’ll give her ideas.”</p><p>“Are we all done? Perfect- let’s go-“ he grabbed the books back and pulled Plum in closer to him, then threw some citrine powder down before she even noticed that there was a warp rune on the floor. </p><p>They arrived back at a mostly empty dining room, dotted with a few staff lingering with a coffee and some work and a few groups of people still chatting. </p><p>“Bollocks- looks like we missed it!”</p><p>“Sorry Gordie.” Plum said, adjusting her grip on the heavy, oversized books. </p><p>“No, it was my fault, I should have kept a better eye on the time-“ Gordie went over to the hatch and leaned in. “Excuse me? Any chance of some leftovers?”</p><p>A stern- looking man in a chef’s hat appeared at the hatch. “Ah. You. You’re too late.”</p><p>“I know, I’m sorry- could you get some hot food together for Plum, though- she’s the one I was telling you about yesterday? The volunteer I have to keep well-fed?” </p><p>The man poked his head out of the hatch, looked her up and down and sniffed. “So this is the new volunteer. Alright. And I’ll feed you as well, this once, Master Gordie. Keep better track of your time- it won’t happen again.”</p><p>Gordie was right about it being easy to overeat- the food was divine, even if it had been supposedly leftovers. It was much more expensive than anything she got at the guild, at any rate- the oily fish was perfectly paired with a sweet sticky sauce, almost melting in her mouth down to the crispy fried skin, and a pile of greens and more sweet loaves of bread followed by fruit and cream cakes- she ate until her stomach hurt, but she didn’t mind- she took it slow enough, stopping to chat with various faculty who stopped by, and Gordie was charming as usual- she tried not to pay attention but she could feel his eyes on her as she fidgeted in her seat and pulled the waistband of her skirt as far up as it could go to give her full belly some room. </p><p>It made for a nice atmosphere, sitting around picking at the last few pieces of fruit left on her plate, talking magic with everyone. Everyone at the guild was always too busy <i>doing </i>magic to sit down and <i>talk </i>magic.</p><p>Despite the earlier warnings, some staff came around with some coffee and sweet cakes for people still working or talking, and when Gordie kept refilling her plate, how could she say no? </p><p>So despite the coffee, she almost found herself falling asleep at the table, and agreed to be shown back upstairs a bit dozily, walking heavily up to bed behind Gordie at about eleven. She was so tired, even the stairs didn’t faze her, they all just blended in together until she could throw herself face-first onto her soft, soft bed, relishing the extra pressure on her belly.</p><p>Gordie laughed. “Right. I’ll leave you to it- breakfast tomorrow is seven through nine- although if you tell them I sent you they should be able to whip you up something if you sleep in. You can eat a lighter breakfast, but I’ve got a set menu for you for the rest of the day, we’ve got big plans for you, after all.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes at the joke. “Will do.”</p><p>“Sleep well- and Plum?”</p><p>“Mmm?”</p><p>“Make sure to wear something nice and loose tomorrow- you’re going to need it.”</p><p>“Okay.” Her stomach churned at the thought even as her heart lurched with excitement. </p><p>When he was gone, she pulled off her clothes with a sigh of relief- especially the buttons on her skirt, which pinged apart as soon as she gave them so much as a nudge, letting soft fat spill out. She didn’t know how the tight skirt was holding her wobbling flesh in- even with the flap open, it was hard to wriggle it down off herself when she let herself breathe out. She folded the skirt and put it back in her bag- Gordie had been right, it was far too tight. She pulled off her top and looked at herself in the mirror- not bad for day one, surely. Her belly was like a ball already just from food, taught and round under the hefty layer of fat gathering at the bottom. She held her hand out in front of herself about as far as Gordie’s had been earlier. </p><p>Even at her most bloated, she’d never been anywhere near that size in her life. She played with her chub, looking in the mirror, then slid a hand down to fondle herself. She couldn’t wait. </p><p> </p><p>—</p><p>She overslept the next morning, of course. The amount she’d eaten last night, it was a surprise she’d managed to wake up at all, and not been sent straight into hibernation like some kind of bear. Her stomach still felt full and heavy, and stood out a good inch more than it usually did. She pulled on a nice new blouse and a low-waisted skirt that was loose enough now that she hopefully wouldn’t have to worry about it cutting her in half later. Surprisingly, the looser clothes made her look a lot thinner, especially once she’d fastened a big ribbon under her collar and put on a knitted cardigan that skimmed over her waist. She almost looked normal. It was both a disappointment and a relief, to be honest- she should have bought bigger clothes ages ago. She bound her hair up into a sensible bun and went to go get some breakfast. </p><p>Or, she tried to go get some breakfast. She put her book and her notes under her arm, and set off down the tower towards where she thought the dining hall should be... but between her fuzzy memory and the confusing map, she got turned around and lost somewhere at the opposite end of the building, and somehow found herself in the basement. To be fair on her, though, it was hard to tell that you were in the basement since it had windows cut into the side of the cliff, and she only found out when she sat down and looked at her map and realised that the hex research department she was next to was on the very lowest floor.</p><p>“You alright, love?” A gaunt, sickly looking man dressed in black came out of the door who she recognised. </p><p>“I’m alright, just a little lost. It’s Piers, right?” She stood up to shake hands with the man, a little cowed by his dark, heavy aura. He seemed nice enough, though, and the hand that shook hers was warm even if his smile didn’t quite reach his tired eyes. </p><p>She tried not to blush- why was everyone who worked here absolutely stunning? Piers was pale and gaunt, for sure, and walked with a stoop, but his icy blue eyes and sharp cheekbones were really something. And she was weak to a man with a ponytail- even one like his that was tangled and messy and shot through with premature grey. (At least- she thought it was premature? She’d learnt from Allister yesterday not to assume anyone’s age. Spirits- she should probably discreetly try to find out how old Gordie was, too.) </p><p>“And you are?” He prompted. </p><p>“Plum. Plum Arnby. I’m professor Gordie’s research volunteer for the arcane distilling experiment.”</p><p>His eyebrows raised, and one corner of his mouth quirked into a smile. “Oh, so he actually managed to find a girl? You’re a brave one.” </p><p>“Not so brave really.” She said, blushing as his eyes flicked down her body so quickly she almost missed it. </p><p>“He’s been trying to get someone to actually go through with it for months.”</p><p>“Well, I am a mage, so I suppose I was curious to see if it worked too.”</p><p>“Believe me, we’re all curious to see if it works. But what brought you all the way down here, mm? Have any business with the hex team?”</p><p>“No- I got lost I’m afraid. Could you point me back towards the dining room?”</p><p>He laughed. “I was headed that way, I’ll take you.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“It’s no trouble, love. This place takes a lot of getting used to. I even get lost still, sometimes. Although, that’s probably because I used to fly everywhere until Rosey took away my broom license a few years back.” He said, ambling towards the stairs.</p><p>“You had a broom license?” Plum stopped in her tracks.</p><p>Piers turned around. “Yeah, I did. You can get away with a lot around here if you say it’s for research.”</p><p>“Can I see it? The broom, I mean?”</p><p>He put a hand on his chest and faked offense. “Why, Miss Plum, you can’t just go around asking to see a man’s <i> broom</i> like that- he’ll get all sorts of ideas.” </p><p>She flushed. “Don’t be like that- “</p><p>He laughed. “Sweetie, you can hop on my broom any time you like. Come on- I’ll show you.” </p><p>She huffed at him and followed back through the hex classroom- which was almost as disorganised as Gordie’s lab- the rows of desks each had a loom with a spiders web, woven through with counter-curses in varying stages of skill and completion, and every surface was piled high with calligraphy supplies, red string, bottles of ingredients, sewn dolls- even the chalkboard was a mess, covered in runes half-wiped off and empty teacups piled up on the ledge with the chalk. She also didn’t miss the big, dusty witch’s hat shoved haphazardly on top of a cabinet. </p><p>He unlocked the door to the office at the back and beckoned her in. </p><p>It was a bit cramped, but cozy, half taken up with cabinetry filled with crystal balls and ribbon, but her eyes snapped straight to the broom mounted on the wall behind his desk.</p><p>“Here she is.” Piers said, taking the broomstick down from its hooks and showing it to her.</p><p>“Whoa.” She ran her fingertips over the carved runes on the handle, the hairs on her arms standing on end as it shuddered to life in Piers’ grip. “It really does feel alive.” </p><p>“It is alive. In a way.” Piers said, passing it to her. It’s energy matched its owner- powerful in a way that made her feel a little uneasy, but with a lightness that she didn’t feel from Piers. She supposed it was hard to be gloomy when you were flying around on an enchanted broom. There was a bundle of lucky charms and feathers tied to the handle and she turned them about, trying to get a feel for their working. “Did you make these?” She said, pausing at a knotted strand of tiny silver bells etched with runes.</p><p>“Most of them. A few things like the bells I got help from- Peony made those.” He rummaged through and pulled out a string of brightly painted clay beads and shells. “Your Gordie made these ones.” </p><p>“It’s such delicate work.” She peered closer at the beads, trying to imagine Gordie holding a brush small enough to make the tiny flower patterns in his big hands.</p><p>“He’s surprisingly good at charms.” </p><p>“Not as good as you, from the looks of it- this knotwork is so intricate.” She said, letting the charms fall through her fingers. “You’ll have to give me some tips on how to work so small- and don’t say it’s just practice, or I’ll cry.” </p><p>“It is mostly just practice, but I’ll do my best to help.”</p><p>She groaned.</p><p>“How about a ride to make up for it?” </p><p>“Seriously? I don’t have a license- and neither do you!” </p><p>“Go on- just around the classroom. You can float, can’t you?”</p><p>“Well, yeah, but-“ </p><p>Piers shepherded her firmly back into the classroom and handed her the broom. “Go on. Live a little.” </p><p>“Well- if I get in trouble I’m blaming you...” she said, giggling nervously as she manoeuvred the broom in between her legs without showing too much thigh. “How does it work?”</p><p>“Just sit down on it. It’ll carry you.” </p><p>“Really? It doesn’t feel like it...” she said, crouching down dubiously. The broom seemed just as bound by gravity as ever.</p><p>“No- sit on it properly- here.” Piers grabbed the wood and tugged it upwards, and she yelped as she felt it purr to life under her and take her weight. </p><p>She giggled and tried not to scream as her feet lifted out from under her and the broom drifted upwards. </p><p>“Just lean in the direction you want to go- and if you want to go up, just pull up like you’re going to float.” Piers said, towing her gently forwards, then setting her free to spin off towards the ceiling. </p><p>“Piers- help!” She crossed her legs under the broom and clung on for dear life, laughing as that only seemed to make it worse and she bumped up against the ceiling. </p><p>“You want a feather duster while you’re up there? Piers said, but he grabbed her ankle and pulled her back down- thankfully his classroom’s ceiling wasn’t all that high. </p><p>It was also a good thing she was wearing a thick petticoat today or he’d be able to see straight up her skirt- she should really have tried to do this side-saddle. But, if she was breaking the law anyway, what was the point being modest about it? She thought. After she got over the initial shock of sitting on nothing, it was pretty intuitive, and soon she was swooping about the classroom as easily as if she was flying under her own steam, only she was probably using less power. </p><p>“I wish that they would un- ban flying.” She said grabbing the witch’s hat off the top of the cabinet and putting it on as she drifted past.</p><p>“You do rather look the part.” Piers said.</p><p>She sighed and put the hat back, letting herself drift back to the floor. “Thank you, Piers. It’s weird to think that in another time I’d have been doing that all the time.”</p><p>“Oh? I thought you were a battle mage.” </p><p>“I am, partly, but I also do a lot of remedies and woven charms as well as fight. I’d definitely be a witch.” She frowned, remembering the room full of crystal balls, and not remembering telling him what she specialised in. “How did you know I was a battle mage? You’re not a psychic too, are you?” </p><p>“A little bit.”</p><p>She yelped and shrank back, trying to stop thinking about his lips. “Please don’t read my mind!”</p><p>He laughed at her. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that to you. Actually my powers only really stretch to getting premonitions, forewarning about disaster, that sort of thing.”</p><p>She sighed with relief and got off the broom.</p><p>“I only knew that because Gordie wouldn’t shut up about you all day after he got you to sign on.”</p><p>She tried not to sound interested. “Is that so? I’m glad I can help with his experiment.” </p><p>“I’m glad, too.” Piers said, taking the broom back and re-locking it away. </p><p>“Come on- it’s about time for lunch. Let’s get you fed, or Gordie will be cross with me.”</p><p>“That sounds good to me.” She agreed, following him out of the room and starting back up the stairs. </p><p>“You’ll have to show me some of your work one of these days- we can talk spider’s silk sometime and I’ll show you my tricks for working small. My specialty is shadow-weaving though- and hexes.”</p><p>“I’ve never met a shadow-weaver before.” </p><p>“You probably have, they just never told you. It’s more common than you’d think.”</p><p>“Would you mind showing me sometime?”</p><p>“We’ll see, darlin’. They’re pretty shy.”</p><p>“Sorry, I’m just interested.” </p><p>“‘S alright, love.” He said, and lapsed into silence.</p><p>“And hexes, too?” She said, trying to keep the conversation going as they headed off down another corridor. </p><p>He shrugged. “I want to help people. A few of my family died of curses so...”</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Piers, I didn’t mean to pry-“</p><p>“Nah, you’re alright. It happens.” He flashed her a tired smile. “No use pretending things didn’t happen, you know?” </p><p>“Yeah.” Poor guy- maybe that was why he had such a gloomy aura. Or maybe that was just the shadows.</p><p>Luckily, they came to the dining hall soon after, and Piers was ambling over to where a few people were already sitting down. </p><p>“Look after your people, Gordie!” Piers said, plonking himself down opposite the alchemy professor and waving to Plum to join him. “Found her wandering around like a lost lamb. Got a worse sense of direction than Leon has, this one.”</p><p>He grimaced. “Sorry! I didn’t want to wake you up and I had solid lectures this morning. Thank you for the rescue, Piers.”</p><p>“Hopefully I’ll learn my way around by myself, soon. I’m not used to having to be chaperoned everywhere.” Plum added. </p><p>“Well, I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning just in case, if you want.” Gordie said. </p><p>“That would help, thank you- thank you!” She turned and beamed at the staffer who’d put a heaping bowl of dumpling stew in front of her, and a less overfull one for Piers. “I got lost on my way to breakfast so I haven’t actually eaten anything yet, so I’m starved!”</p><p>“Sorry again, Plum.” Gordie said. </p><p>She picked up her spoon and took a bite. “No, I’m sorry- I’m probably messing up your experiment.” It was good- thick and rich and salty- she pulled her bowl closer and dug in with a purpose. </p><p>“You’re not- I’m sure you’ll make up for it before too long at this rate.” Gordie smiled, and she swallowed her mouthful, feeling embarrassed to be called out on eating so fast. </p><p>“Um, how much am I supposed to be eating today, anyway?” She asked. </p><p>“Honestly? As much as you can take.” Gordie said, eyeing her across the table. “But for now- if you can manage three servings, that would be it for now.”</p><p>Piers looked dubious. “Three servings of that? I think your idea of other people’s stomach capacity has got a bit skewed, mate.”</p><p>“She can do it. She ate that much on her own the other day.” </p><p>Plum felt herself blushing as she cleared her bowl. “Of course I can eat it. You don’t pass up on free food.”</p><p>“There’s free food and then there’s free food...” Piers tailed off as a server switched out Plum’s empty bowl for a full one and she dove back in.</p><p>“I can handle as much free food as I’m given.” She said, patting her stomach. </p><p>“See?” Gordie said, and was it just her but did he sound proud? It was probably just her wishful thinking, mixed with all the food in her belly making her feel good about everything already. </p><p>“Don’t force yourself, though. You’ve got to be comfortable.”</p><p>“Thanks, but I’ve got this covered.” She resisted the urge to wink at Gordie, who was still eating too, but at a slower pace. </p><p>Piers stayed a while longer, unashamedly watching as she put away another bowl and a half, but then had to leave to go teach. She felt a little disappointed that she wouldn’t have his eyes on her- but there was still Gordie. Sweet, calm Gordie- compared to Piers, his aura was warm and soft, like being wrapped in a heavy blanket. She suspected he was only partly doing it on purpose, and partly he was just the kind of person whose emotions showed easily in the energy they gave off. </p><p>As it was, between the cozy atmosphere and the food bloating out her stomach, she was almost feeling ready to sleep when she finished the third bowl and sat back, feeling pleased with herself. “Oof. I’m still full from yesterday.” She rubbed over her stretched out skin, relishing how much bigger she was than this morning, and her stomach gurgled. </p><p>“Where would you like to go now? I’ll take you, save you getting lost again.”</p><p>“Hm. Somewhere cozy and quiet to study. Not the library- it’s too haunted.”</p><p>“Come up to my study then. There’s tea and comfy chairs, and if you need to go anywhere else I can get someone to take you.”</p><p>“That sounds like a plan.” She said, and heaved herself to her feet. “Don’t walk too fast- all the blood’s gone to my stomach.” </p><p>“All right, I’ll go slow.” He said, picking up her books for her. </p><p>She ambled along beside him, only feeling a little less dozy after the ten minute walk. He took her into the little room at the back of his lab- which, like Piers’ office, was half store cupboard, half comfy study, with armchairs and a nice desk buried under papers and samples of crystal and teacups. Even better- there was a heaping pile of cushions arranged in the wide window seat and she made a beeline for it, settling in happily and curling up around her bloated tummy with her book propped on her knees. </p><p>It was hard to concentrate on anything though, when her body was busy digesting, and she didn’t realise that she’d fallen asleep until a blanket was thrown over her and she woke up, grunting sleepily. </p><p>“Sorry. Go back to sleep.” Gordie said, reaching over to tuck the blanket more securely. </p><p>She dozed on and off for a while- Gordie stayed in the office with her for a while, writing and clacking away with an abacus, and then came in and out to go teach or check an experiment or various things. The sunshine from the window was warm, and it the low level hum of students talking next door was a nice background noise. </p><p>Just as she was thinking about maybe waking up enough to read something, Gordie reappeared with a tea tray for her, and a plate of sticky iced buns. He nicked one to have with his own tea, but she ate the rest easily, noticing idly that she’d been given cream instead of milk to pour in her tea. How decadent. She made sure to drink every last drop, before she made herself sit up and start studying. Tomorrow she’d probably save studying for the morning and just do some weaving, if she was going to be this stuffed all the time for the next two weeks. </p><p>The way she was sitting, she could feel her tummy squashing against her legs, but she liked it. It was nice, munching away and imagining she could feel it getting bigger as she took notes- she didn’t much use her mages grimoire these days, so it was nice to actually add to it.  </p><p>She was buried in different techniques for dying kirin wool when Gordie set another tray in front of her- she hadn’t even noticed that he’d was gone, his aura blended so well with the warm afternoon sunlight. </p><p>“Spinning, huh?” He said, peering at the page of diagrams and ingredients in front of her. </p><p>“I do a lot of woven charms.”</p><p>He made a semi- interested noise as he poured her some hot chocolate. “You doing okay? You looked pretty out of it after lunch.” </p><p>“Yes, thanks. I was just full, and i’s so nice and warm here.” </p><p>“You need anything else? More cushions? Some water?”</p><p>“I’m alright, thank you.” She greedily held out her hands for the chocolate, and he passed it to her with a plate of cookies.</p><p>“Finish those by this evening.” He said, sitting down and pulling out some more work.</p><p>“Excuse me?” She said, grinning at the commanding tone.</p><p>“Finish those by this evening.” He cracked a smile. “You’re gaining on my timetable now, Missy. You’re going to be fatter than me in two weeks.”</p><p>Her eyes slid down to his comfortably round stomach, still bloated from lunch and that morning’s crystal. “There’s no way that’s going to happen.” She said, even though she wasn’t actually much thinner than him, it just looked like it because her giant boobs made her gut look smaller in comparison. </p><p>“Not with that attitude it isn’t. Eat it or I’ll feed it to you.” He said, wagging a finger at her. </p><p>“That doesn’t sound so bad.” She joked, but took a cookie all the same, switching positions to lie back with the book propped on her spread legs, letting her tummy have more room. She was very comfortably full by this point, more in the mood for a nap and a belly rub than more food, but she managed most of the rest of the cookies, absent-mindedly playing with her chub as she stroked her belly and studied. </p><p>—-</p><p>“You didn’t finish.” She looked up to see Gordie with another tray- this time with two heaping bowlfuls of stew and rice.</p><p>She gulped. “Is it dinner time already?”</p><p>“It is.” He grinned at her. I’ll go easy on you since it’s you’re first day- you can finish those after pudding.” </p><p>Was that a threat or flirting? Plum wondered, because it felt like both. </p><p>He set the tray down. “I brought this up because I thought you might want a little privacy to eat all this- we can go down to the dining hall if you’d rather, though. Or I suppose you could eat in your room, though that seems a little lonely.”</p><p>“Up here sounds nice.”</p><p>“Probably not a good idea to try to eat all this perched in the window, though. You get comfortable and I’ll go grab the rest.” He gestured to the pair of armchairs by the fire. </p><p>“You’ve made me quite a nice little table here, though.” She said, patting her tummy. </p><p>He blushed. “I’ll go grab the rest of it.” He said, and then warped away. </p><p>She giggled to herself as she hauled herself out of one comfy chair and into the other, over by the fire. It was a lot warmer than the window seat now that the sun had gone in, and it was sumptuously soft as she settled down, ready to see how much more food she could cram into herself. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she could manage much of what he’d brought so far- she could maaaaybe manage one helping of the stew, but she was feeling pretty packed- she was just surreptitiously untucking her blouse when Gordie returned with more food- the low table in between the chairs was soon laden with delicious- smelling food. </p><p>She leaned back and tried not to think about how she was going to manage to eat it all, and accepted the first bowl Gordie passed her. “Tuck in. There’s heating spells on the rest them, so there’s no rush.”</p><p>He sat back and started in on his own food with an appreciative noise, and she followed suit, tiredly keeping up a conversation about the techniques she’d been studying that afternoon.</p><p>It wasn’t too hard to fit the first bowl in- the thick creamy sauce and tender meat sat nice and heavy in her gut after all the cake she’d eaten, but it was a good heavy- but if it was down to her she would probably have stopped instead of reaching for her second portion. Instead, she soldiered on, wishing that she could get her belly out to give herself a little more room- and to show Gordie how full she was- it was pushing against her blouse by now, just a little- but she felt ginormous, and distant from everything. Her stomach hurt, and it was getting hard to breathe deeply, but she didn’t want to stop because of how awesomely <i> big</i> it felt. </p><p>Two bowls down and she sat back with a gasp and massaged her gut. “Oof. That’s- I think I’m nearly done, Gordie.”</p><p>“Can you manage another portion? You’re doing so well.” He said, voice low and encouraging. </p><p>Her pussy clenched. “Yeah. Just give me ten minutes to digest a little. She grunted without meaning to as she tried to shift her packed gut, it was so tight- there was no give under her hands, there was so much inside her. She spread her legs and almost felt it sag down- it did relieve some of the pressure though. She picked up the third portion of stew, feeling hot and her skin prickling all over. </p><p>“There we go.” Gordie said, and she let herself look over at him. He’d put his food aside and was just watching her, eyes glittering in the firelight.</p><p>It felt- so dirty, eating like that, sitting opposite him and just eating herself into a stupor. She couldn’t help but be hyperaware of his eyes on her, and his gentle encouragement made her shudder and grit her teeth and keep going. If she’d been full from that afternoons cake, now she was on the verge of exploding- she was short of breath, fidgeting in her chair and rubbing her stomach, gasping and panting in between bites. She was so, so full- the rich food was so good but she didn’t know if she could manage it, her belly was rock hard and it hurt but in the best way. </p><p>“I need another break.” She leant back and rubbed her tortured belly, groaning. </p><p>“Have a little break then.” Gordie said. “You’ve just got a little more. It’s strawberry crumble for pudding if you can manage it.” </p><p>“I want to manage it- that sounds good.” She flopped back with a groan, her mouth watering. “Spirits~ “ She could feel her pulse in her stretched out skin as her stomach hopelessly tried to cope with being crammed so full. She only hoped he couldnt see how hard her nipples were through her top. </p><p>She’d hoped her break would let her digest a bit, and fill out the bottom of her gut- but she’d been eating all day, that was already full- and twenty minutes later, she gulped and reached for the last bowl. </p><p>“Lie down- I’ll help.” Gordie said, talking in a soft, deep voice that did things to her- he pulled up a footstool next to her and sat down, reaching out towards her tummy. “Is this alright?”</p><p>“Please.” She sagged back into the chair and groaned as he rubbed over her belly- in wide circles over her taut skin and more gently over her chub at the bottom- spirits that felt good. She wished he’d slide his fingers down and into her cunt, she needed him- he could just push her back and mount her right there- after he’d done this to her, she was so needy, and they might get a nice angle with her legs thrown over the armrests. </p><p>She let out a shaky breath. She was in so much trouble- she’d been outright leaking into her knickers since he got his hands on her, and if her nipples had been hard before, now they were definitely visible through her shirt, feeling hypersensitive and tender as her bra rasped over them thanks to how damn turned on she was. </p><p>And then he took the bowl from her and held up a forkful of pudding. “Would this help?” </p><p>Spirits, why was this so hot? “Please.” She opened her mouth, and tried to just eat it- but it was hard to eat when someone else was holding the cutlery- he didn’t quite get the right angle and nearly jabbed the roof of her mouth with the fork, so she grabbed his hand to stop him- and then it just felt so fucking tender, holding his hand in place so she could suck the last bit of sugar off of the fork as he pet her belly- </p><p>His hands felt so good even as he stuffed her bite after agonising bite- eventually she couldn’t take the feel of fabric rasping over her stretched skin and pulled open her blouse to pet her own bare skin- and then his hand joined hers. </p><p>He whistled. “You have been putting it away.” He said, and put the fork down to frame her gut in his hands.</p><p>She nodded. “I look bloody pregnant.” Her stomach stuck out in a hard, bloated arc straight out from under her ribs, pushing down her skirt. She was so full her pudge was stretched over it, and only a little soft crease was left by the very bottom, as well as her love handles, of course. </p><p>He pinched the little roll and she mewled behind her mouthful of cake. His hands on her felt so good- she never got to have someone pet her like this when she was gorging herself, and it was addictive- the slight callouses on his hands gliding over her soft belly- and his hands were so warm. </p><p>“Come on. There’s still some room in this thing.” He said, then pressed in and shook it a little- just enough so that she could feel everything jiggle-including her breasts, which she wondered if he noticed. Honestly, she had yet to meet a man who was into women and not at least slightly into her tits, no matter how much they claimed that the rest of her body was an absolute turn off, so she’d be surprised if he didn’t. And Gordie didn’t seem to mind the rest of her either, judging by his carefully blank expression as he played with her belly fat a little more. </p><p>“There’s no more room, believe me.”</p><p>“Really? Should I stop?” </p><p>She wrestled with herself as he pressed in at the bottom of her gut, through the fat to make firm circles on her guts. She was so full. But... if it felt this good to be this full- how amazing would it feel to finish? </p><p>“No. I can finish. Just - keep making some more room in me- “</p><p>“That’s it- not much more to go. “ he said, and she shivered as a fresh wave of heavy warm energy blanketed her. “Try to enjoy it.” He traced the sensitive skin under her navel with his nails and she twitched. </p><p>“I’m so damn full, Gordie.” She hiccuped as he scraped the last of the crumble off the plate and fed it to her.</p><p>“I know, you’re nearly there. Just one more thing for me-“</p><p>She groaned. She thought she’d finished. </p><p>“Here.” One of the remaining cookies was held to her mouth- ohh spirits, he was feeding her with his bare hands now- his fingers were right there- it was so tempting to lick the chocolate off them as he fed her- see how he liked it- but she just ate from his hands, let him wipe her mouth with a napkin and fell back, groaning. </p><p>“There we go. All done now. You did so well for me, Plum.” </p><p>She was dazed and aching and so, so wet- she hiccuped and held her stomach as he pet her for a while longer.</p><p>And then, he left her alone to do some more work. She wanted more attention and his soothing voice, as she rubbed her own tummy and laid there in a horny stupor- she was too fat to move and go to her room, even if she managed to get there she was too heavy and full to get herself off- she wanted him to fuck her- or someone to fuck her, at least- pet her stretched out gut as they rammed into her, maybe hold her up and take her from behind, letting everything hang down- she tried not to make any inappropriate noises but it was so, so hard. </p><p>—-</p><p>“Can you move?” She woke up again later, back under the blanket, and the room dark, the fire down to embers.</p><p>“Absolutely not.” She said, heaving herself to stand. She felt better for her nap, but still so, so heavy and so full she could hardly think. </p><p>“There we go.” He steadied her and then warped her back to her room, where she immediately flopped back onto her bed. </p><p>“Spirits. Look at this thing.”</p><p>“I know. You’ve done brilliantly, Plum. You just sleep that off and we’ll see if we can’t get you bigger tomorrow.”</p><p>“Oh, I’ll be bigger by tomorrow alright. Some of this has got to stick around.” She said, and wasn’t that a delicious thought.</p><p>“Get some sleep and I’ll hold you to that.” Was all he said, before he shut the door and padded off to his own room, leaving her alone to try to wriggle out of her clothes and into her nightgown before her mountainous gut sent her to sleep again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>We have achieved some light petting people, this isn’t a drill! Wonder how they’ll both feel about it tomorrow...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Some feelings are had and boundaries re-drawn</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>By the way- do let me know if there are any more dumb formatting errors! I fixed where I forgot to end the italic in chapter two, but I’m sure it’s not the last &lt; /i &gt; I’ll forget!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day, Plum eagerly slipped into her loose clothes, petting her tummy and turning this way and that to look at herself in the mirror. She’d woken up still bloated, of course- but it felt like she’d got a little fatter already. She pinched at the roll under her belly button and gave it a shake- surely it was a little bigger? It felt bigger- when she leant over to put on her skirt, it bulged over the waistband of her knickers way more than it used to, but... she straightened back up and it shrank back again into just the usual generous muffin top as she buttoned up her skirt. Oh, well. There would be plenty of time to fix that later.</p><p>It was a good job she’d got dressed- she picked up some card-weaving to do, but had barely got two rows in before Gordie was knocking on her door, asking if she was ready to go to breakfast.</p><p>She was- she was rather looking forward to seeing what kind of breakfast menu the university had to offer. </p><p>Gordie struggled to meet her eyes as she opened the door, and her heart sank, remembering the night before. Had she gone too far? </p><p>“Good morning, Gordie. Did you sleep alright?”</p><p>“Not really.” He admitted, fidgeting with his jacket cuff. He looked around, and spoke again in a lowered voice. “Look- Plum- er, I mean. Miss Arnby.”</p><p>She made a face. “Yes?” </p><p>“We. About last night- I got carried away. Sorry. You don’t have to... I won’t push you that hard again.”</p><p>She sighed, disappointed. “Oh. I didn’t mind.”</p><p>He mustered the courage to look up at her face. “I know you didn’t. That’s kind of the point.”</p><p>“Hmm.” She didn’t want to agree in so many words, but... she hadn’t really done a good job of hiding exactly how much she’d been enjoying herself last night. </p><p>“I’m- going to keep my distance more- if that’s alright? You’ve met Klara- she’ll look after you as well, from now on- she’s potions too, so... “ he trailed off, and shrugged. “It’s either this or I’ll have to call the whole thing off, you know?”</p><p>She sighed, feeling a little glum as the prospect of another lovely feeding like last night evaporated. “I suppose it can’t be helped. I’ll back off, too.”</p><p>“Thank you.” He shook his head. “It’s one hundred percent my fault, though- I’m the one who’s supposed to be keeping an even keel, here.” </p><p>“Well, don’t <i> keel </i> yourself worrying about it, I’m an adult too. I can look after myself. But please, don’t call me miss Arnby, it makes me feel like I’m in trouble!”</p><p>He groaned. “I can’t take jokes like that this early in the morning.”</p><p>“I’m trying to lighten the mood!” She protested, as they turned into the dining hall, and delicious breakfasty smells distracted her. “Oh, that smells good.”</p><p>“It will be- I think it’s eggy bread today.” </p><p>“Not to sound ungrateful about you feeding me all this wonderful food- but isn’t there a magical way to gain this extra weight? Since- eating it seems to be causing a little bit of a problem.” She said, aware that she was blushing. “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to do it quicker, too?</p><p>He cleared his throat. “I wish there was. Well- there is a way, there must be- but no one’s ever done research on something like that in modern times, and whatever way they might have had to do it before is lost to time.”</p><p>“Can’t you just do, like, a weight-loss spell, but in reverse?” She joked, and he threw up his hands and groaned. </p><p>“Send her away- this one can’t possibly be a mage!” </p><p>“Are you suuure it wouldn’t work?” She nudged his leg under the table, forgetting herself for a minute.</p><p>He nudged back. “You wanna turn that fork around in your hand and see if it un-eats your toast?”</p><p>“Well, if it’s for the experiment- “ she mimed stabbing the handle into her eggs, and he burst out laughing.</p><p>“Mornin’ all.” Piers said, sliding in next to Plum with a mug of coffee.</p><p>“Morning, Piers.” Plum turned to face him- in time to see him frown and mouth something that looked like <i> stop flirting </i> at Gordie.</p><p>He mouthed something back, but Plum wasn’t fast enough to catch it.</p><p>“You really must not be that psychic if you’re doing that, Piers.” She said drily. </p><p>“Piers was just calling me an idiot.” Gordie said, moving his foot off of hers as if he’d forgotten about it.</p><p>“And was I wrong?” Piers said, and took a long swig of coffee. </p><p>“Maybe?” </p><p>Piers just gave him a look, and he laughed sheepishly again. “Maybe not.”</p><p>“Anyway, what are your plans for today, Plum?”</p><p>“Not much apart from eat, really.” She said, sliding her empty plate away with a happy sigh. “I need to get some more books from the library- and return some, to show Allister that he doesn’t need to hate me.” </p><p>“Have you finished those three already?” Gordie said, through a mouthful of toast. He swallowed it, and then continued. “That was fast!”</p><p>She shrugged. “I said I wanted to make the most of it, didn’t I?” </p><p>“Yeah, but I’m used to students reading. You give em a chapter to read and then a week later you ask who’s done it and they’ve all been too busy to make it past the first paragraph.”</p><p>“I guess they don’t have so much of a time limit.”</p><p>“Are you saying that the prospect of my wrath isn’t enough to motivate them?”</p><p>“Sorry Gordie, but I really can’t imagine you being the slightest bit wrathful.”</p><p>“Yeah- he doesn’t really go past a grumpy little strop.” Piers added.</p><p>“Oy- you’re supposed to back me up here, Piers.” </p><p>“It’s quite a dramatic strop, at least. There’s usually some stomping around involved. Sometimes he throws his toys out of the pram, too.”</p><p>“Stop! You’ve both got detention.” </p><p>“Uh-huh? Gonna give us lines to do?” Plum joked. </p><p>“I could give you extra work- but I doubt it’d be any sort of actual punishment for you.” Gordie said drily.</p><p>“You’d be right there.” She patted her belly. “I could go for some extra credit, though.” </p><p>Gordie snorted and opened his mouth- but then shut it again, pouting across at Piers, who was glaring at him again. </p><p>“Anyway- can you remember the way to the library from here, Plum?” </p><p>“Probably.” She frowned. “Maybe. Is it... left, towards the student dorms and then up the big staircase?”</p><p>“<i>Which<i> student dorms- there’s three.”</i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“There are? I’m talking about the ones near the aurora hall-“</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Plum, none of them are near the Aurora hall. Where do you mean?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It’s the dorms- it’s a big lounge, and then the stairway up has a sign saying dorms this way! By the Aurora hall!”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Piers frowned. “Do you mean the light conservatoire?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I mean a big glass room with an Aurora in it- what’s the difference between that and an Aurora hall?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“The Aurora hall is full of pipes and doesn’t have a glass roof.” Piers said.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Which is because the hall is actually where they’re made- the conservatoire is just where Students can take them to practice.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I guess I don’t know where it is then.” She said, pulling out her map from her notebook and trying to re-orient herself. “I thought it was this.” She said, and pointed to the Aurora hall on the map. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“No, that one’s the floor below us- we’re on this page now.” Gordie said, pointing to one of the many confusing diagrams. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You will find your way around eventually, but in the meantime- I can help with that.” Piers said, and leant forward and touched a cool hand to her forehead.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She jumped- and suddenly, she knew the way. “Don’t do psychic things to me with no warning, Piers!” She rubbed her forehead. “But thank you.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Why, you got something to hide?” He leant back on his chair and smirked at her. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yes! Everyone wants to hide their brains from being looked at!” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Relax. That only works on people when I’m touching them- and I can’t read the specifics of your thoughts anyway. I just get a general feeling.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You’ll have to crack out the tinfoil hat when Avery comes around, though.” Gordie said.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That sounds ominous- are they a Psychic too?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“He is... and sometimes he’s more powerful than Piers... and the rest of the time he’s completely useless.” Gordie shrugged. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Somehow, he isn’t very good with people, either, even after reading their minds, so I think that has something to do with it.” Piers says. “He’s amazing at reading Klara’s mind- I think it’s because they’re so similar.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I suppose that might work.” Gordie said, and stood up, stretching. “Right. I’ve got a class to teach, so I’ll head off. See you both later.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Bye.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Later.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He sauntered off- but towards the serving hatch at the back of the room, not the door, and detoured back via their table again, sliding a plate of macarons in front of Plum.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Have some lines to do.” He said, with a wink.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She felt herself blush and Piers huffed crossly, but Gordie had swept out of the door before he’d had time to retaliate.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’ll head out too- but I’ll remind you that if he does anything out of line- you just come to me or any of the other staff and we’ll see to it that you never have to see him again. And that you get paid in full regardless.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Thank you, Piers, but I don’t mind. It’s nice, actually.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He sighed. “That’s even more reason he shouldn’t be coming on to you in the middle of an experiment, love.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’m alright, Piers. We’re both adults. Neither of us is going to leap into bed and ruin the experiment.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It’s not about the experiment, Plum, it’s about you.” He ambled around the table and put a hand on her shoulder. “But I’ve said my piece. You listen to your gut and if something doesn’t feel right, come get me and I’ll help you out.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Listening to my gut is what got me here in the first place, Piers.” She said, brushing his hand off of her shoulder when she felt his prickly aura against hers. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>One corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin. “So it did. Maybe listen to your head, then. You’re a smart girl, after all.” He pushed off from the table, and sloped off.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>The macarons didn’t taste quite so nice after that.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>—-</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Her bad mood lasted right up until she made it up to the library, and the smell of old books hit her. This, this was a good thing. Just her, a month of free time she didn’t have to badger Filia for and justify to the Guildmaster, and all these glorious books to be dealing with. She breathed in deeply and smiled to herself. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She stopped by Allister’s desk to return some of her books- well. She left them there with a note and a happy face drawn on it when he shrieked and physically melted into the shadows upon seeing her- but it was a token of good faith- and when she was browsing through the crystalline section, a few books floated up to her and followed her, hovering close by. When she mustered up the courage to pick one up out of the air, it was a catalogue of weaving knots and patterns from the continent, and another was a slimmer book full of folk spells for embroidering and their potential for modern use. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I already checked them out under your account.” Came a thin, quavering voice from behind the shelves.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Thank you, Allister. How did you know what kind of books I wanted?” She said, trying to pinpoint the point in the shadows where he was hiding. Surely his glowing eyes would have to show, right? She felt a little silly just talking to the air. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“People scare me- but I know everything about books.” He said, from wherever he was.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Would you mind checking this one out for me, too?” She held out a book on quartz healing, and it obligingly floated out of her hands towards the desk. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She padded over- and he was sitting there again, and stayed sitting as he handed the book back over, albeit with shaking hands. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Thank you, Allister.” She said, beaming at him.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Are you one of those people who look scary but are actually nice? You remind me of Mrs Melony.” He asked.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I don’t think I look that scary- but I promise I try to be nice! Who’s Melony, anyway?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“The Ice Queen from Highcastle.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I remind you of her? Thank you- I think?” She said, colouring. She didn’t know too much about the infamous ice mage from the northern university- all that folk said about her was that she was a cruel, ruthless fighter, the best in the land at cryomancy, and if it was a man doing the talking, they always remarked on her massive tits as well. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Plum hunched her shoulders self-consciously. “Well- I’ll leave you to your work- it sounds like I’ve got to study up if I want to live up to the Ice Queen.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>—-</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She found a free spot at the desks, and set her stack of books down with a satisfying thud. Her mouth practically watered as she pulled up a chair to study- she felt like she was getting to gorge herself on knowledge too, as she started to flick through and take some notes. There was just so much she wanted to do- it was a little hard to focus, when all this was at her fingertips- she kept wanting to dive into a new topic every five minutes, but got settled in reading the Quartz text first, since that would be the most relevant to her very soon. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She’d had a little read of the arcane texts that Gordie had given her earlier, and she flicked back to her notes on that as she chewed the end of her pen and read about the harmonic energy of amethyst binding more easily to human flesh and this lending it its characteristic healing power. It seemed that the ancient text operated on mostly the same theory, although they called it flow, and thought of it’s behaviour as a spiral shape rather than a wave. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Plum’s mind started to wander again, and she idly wondered if they had more ancient magics here that would be useful to her too- ooh, they might even have some texts about sex magic that escaped the book burnings. She’d be very keen to try that out, especially with a certain someone who liked to experiment... she grinned to herself and rested her breasts comfortably on the table as she imagined how poor Gordie must have fared when he tried the quartz experiment out on himself- he’d have been rubbing his sore nipples as his achy little swells of moobs filled with milk- she wondered if he’d enjoyed it as much as she thought she’d enjoy her own distilling process. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Stop it, Plum. She really needed to stop idly fantasising about him- especially since there were psychics and mages around. She could spend some more time on that particular train of thought later that evening~</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She went back to studying, and time passed without her realising. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She only looked up when Gordie appeared behind her and pointedly cleared his throat to get her attention. It looked like she’d missed today’s citrine again, he was all bloated up and his waistcoat was undone- and it sounded like it too. He was standing close enough that she could hear the clunk of the crystals in his belly as he moved. This really wasn’t fair- how was she supposed to keep on the straight and narrow when he was walking around looking so full and round and fuckable all the time? And when he was this close- she could just lean over and smush her face into his gut, see if she could feel the rocks he’d stuffed himself with through the fat- she stopped herself in that train of thought, or he’d probably start to feel it in her aura. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hello, Gordie. Did the citrine go okay today?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It went well, thanks. There’s not that much variation in it- you didn’t miss much.” He said, touching his stomach lightly, as if it was a subconscious movement. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’m sorry to have missed it anyway. I lost track of time.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Looks like you’re a regular bookworm.” He said, smiling down at her. “You’ve got a little bit of something here,” he touched the corner of his own mouth. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Really?” She pulled a hanky out of her pocket and dabbed at it- then forced a little puff magic out to push the smear off of her skin. “Sorry- I try not to but I chew pens when I’m concentrating.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hungry again? Maybe I should start feeding you more.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Plum gulped. She was so fucked. That wouldn’t sound like flirting to a normal person- and yet, she was one hundred percent sure that Gordie knew that she was into it, and that he knew that she knew that <i>he </i> was into it. “I suppose we’ll see at lunch.” Was all she managed to say, a tad faintly.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He frowned. “Plum- it’s gone three. Did you forget to have lunch?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“What!?” She craned around to look at the clock- the clock that she had purposely sat within eyesight of- and it was true. “Gordie I am so sorry- I lost track of the time!”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He sighed and shook his head. “Looks like I’m going to have to get someone to remind you to eat, Hm? Come on- you can have a little snack to make up for it.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She hung her head and followed him, trying not to grin. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>A ‘little snack’ turned out to be four pieces of the richest chocolate cake she’d ever tasted- it was like some twisted fantasy- he just set the cake in front of her and told her to eat as much as she could. Plum thought she did it justice- she loved sweets after all, and revelled in the rich chocolate- the decadent taste and texture of the icing on her tongue, the moist sponge sliding down her throat, and then the delicious size of it in her belly. It felt so big in her- she drank a little water, but mostly she was just so full of cake- and it wasn’t heavy at all, just- large- so large that she could feel her stomach sitting on her thighs already, and when she slouched, her breasts rested on top of that, it was so big. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She hiccuped and sat back, feeling enormous. “I need a break- don’t take that away just yet.” She said, trying to massage the bottom of her gut as politely as she could.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You’ve more than made up for missing lunch, Plum- stop if you want.” Gordie, not being one to miss out, had also had some cake- just the one piece though. He looked full enough from the citrine and from lunch. He still hadn’t redone his waistcoat, letting the whole world see exactly how full he was- she could see his flesh pressed against the thin white undershirt, turning it slightly pink, and there was a noticeable indent where his navel was... she tore her eyes away from the fold where no doubt his pecs were snugly resting against the top of his gut, and looked back at the other temptation in the room- the rest of that cake. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She gulped down a little more water and breathed deeply, trying to make some more room. She wasn’t packed quite full yet- but this next slice might do her in. “Don’t worry- I could eat chocolate forever. It’s my favourite food.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That’s good to know.” He mirrored her posture, and slouched back in his chair. “Any other favourite foods? It only seems right to make this as easy on you as it can be.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Oh- I love anything dessert. Mm, and comfort foods too. I like a good, hearty meal.” She laughed ruefully, stroking over her belly. “I suppose that much is obvious just to look at me.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He patted his own stomach and smiled sleepily. “No shame in eating what you want. Lots of mages tend to be bigger, especially if you’re doing lots of body-based work like you and I do.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She snorted. “It feels like every battle mage I know is a tiny little thing or absolutely built. I’m certainly the only one at the guild who fit your criteria.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Shame, that. Loads of offensive techniques benefit from a big, sturdy body to back it up.” He stifled a yawn. “In the experiment proper you’ll have to not do any magic apart from the potion, to keep it controlled- but before that, I’d love to watch you work. I’ve a long way to go as a battle mage.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I don’t think I’m going to be taking on any missions in this state, Gordie, but you can train with me, if you want.” She heaved herself up in her chair and took one last piece of cake, then started to eat. It was strange- she was feeling big and satisfied- but not nearly so horny as yesterday. It felt like Gordie was reining in his aura for once- but it also just felt- oddly companionable. Like midsummer’s Eve, when everyone had feasted themselves silly and had no energy for anything but to sit about and nurse their full stomachs as they watched the dancers perform, and she got to let her true appetite show without anyone judging her because it was the one time a year it was allowed, and everyone had done the same thing. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She finished her cake and sighed, rubbing her belly. “Not that I’m going to be much use after the experiment with all this in the way. I’m going to be the size of a house after all this cake.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You need to meet some more mages your size, Plum, then you’ll see how you can battle on a full stomach. Hey- I’ll try to put you in touch with some of the girls up in highcastle, I’m sure someone there would be happy to talk techniques. Folk tend a bit larger up north.” He grimaced. “Or- she’s not your size, but I bet my mother would love you- she’s one hell of a battle mage.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Your mum?” Plum tried not to let her interest show on her face, but she thought she’d failed when he just sighed and shrugged.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yeah- she’s pretty terrifying.” He laughed a little sadly. “We don’t talk much- she disapproves of all these arcane experiments.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Oh. That’s a shame.” She desperately wanted to seem like she wasn’t trying to poke too much into his private life, but also, she really, really wanted to know what happened. “I guess parental relationships are difficult like that sometimes.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“The worst of it is - she’s not even worried about it because it’s immoral- she’s just worried I’ll get into trouble because of what other people are worried about. But the way I see it, is no point in throwing all this powerful magic away because some people are scared of sex magic and breasts, right? Like half of everyone’s got ‘em, might as well make use of ‘em? You know?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Plum tried and failed to stay on topic. “So... you dabbled in sex magic too.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’m not telling <i> you</i> anything about that.” He said, and gave her a knowing look. “Come on- if you’re finished then you can study with me so I can make you eat your dinner later.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>It was a quiet, companionable rest of the afternoon. It had started to rain, and she could hear it beating against the walls and the window, but she was nice and warm, curled up in the window seat with her blanket and her books.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie had got Charles out and let him creep slowly around the office, exploring, and poking his little head into every nook and cranny in search of food. Eventually, he slowly dragged himself over to her and tried to haul himself up onto her window seat. She leant over and picked the little creature up- he was surprisingly heavy, although she supposed maybe there was less body in that rocky shell than it looked like there ought to be? She inspected him as he purred and chirruped happily, winding a leg around her arm. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Aww, he likes you.” Gordie said, putting down his pen to wiggle his fingers at the little turtle and coo at him from across the room.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“What does he eat apart from roasted squash? Can I have a treat for him?” She said, petting his head dubiously. She wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it, but he didn’t seem to want to leave her, only crawling up her lap towards her face, so she carried on doing it.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“He eats anything and everything- but I feed him wisp seeds, mostly. And some jade salmon roe every once in a while as a treat.” He fished out a box from his desk drawer and walked over to give her a pinch of flaky, powdery seeds in the palm of her hand, then reached down dangerously close to her chest to pet Chuck. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Chuck gobbled them up, completely ignoring his owner, before licking the powder methodically off of her hand with his tiny tongue and then fell asleep, perched on her tummy. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Do you want to-“ she said, nodding down at the creature. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie seemed to notice where his hand was and hurriedly withdrew it. “Sorry, Plum.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“This little guy really is your baby, isn’t he.” She said, laughing at him. “Leave him here- I don’t mind.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie returned to his desk, red in the face again, and Plum shuffled back enough to read around the little turtle- which was quite awkward, really, but she managed. She just had to set the book on her thighs and lean back enough so that she could see over her gut- but between the weight of the cake in her, the rain, and the tiny snores that Chuck started up, she ended up falling asleep too.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>—-</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>The next thing she knew, she was startled awake when her book fell to the floor with a heavy thud. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“What happened?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie laughed good-naturedly at her, and Chuck gave an indignant squeak as he was dislodged and started to slide down her tummy. She wrapped an arm around him and stood up. “I need some tea.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie stifled a yawn. “That sounds good-I’ll show you where we keep the things so you can make some if I’m not around.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She followed him back through to the lab, and then groaned in disbelief as he opened one of the cupboards above a sink, and amongst the clutter on the worktop, she noticed a burner set aside with a kettle perched precariously on top- “Gordie! You don’t use science equipment for making tea, do you?”<br/>
It would explain the cups scattered everywhere.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Not usually!” He had the decency to look a little embarrassed. “I’ve not been able to do any magic under my own steam for months for this citrine- I got tired of pestering other people for tea!” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Please tell me you at least keep that sink for tea only.” She said, peering in with a wince- but no, amongst the unwashed crockery, there was definitely a ceramic crucible and some glass stirring rods- ugh, and there were more lab stirring rods and metal scoops mixed in with the pot of teaspoons on the side.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I... tried to keep it for tea only.” He admitted. “Sorry, Plum. I’ve got my budgets for next year due soon, and everything else has kind of fallen by the wayside.”  He turned the tap on and made to start washing up, and she nudged him aside. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’ll do it.” She said, and whipped some soap up into a foam with magic.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Thank you.” He looked a bit wistful as she poured a bit of magic into the water, and made quick work of scouring off the dirt and tea-stains, leaving a pile of clean, dry dishes behind in a puff of steam.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Honestly, I can’t wait to have a proper clean again- the cleaning staff aren’t allowed to do the labs past a quick sweep of the floor.” He reached past her to pull out a box of tea from a high shelf, and made to start the burner.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Let me do that.” She said, taking the kettle and heating the water with a blast of magic.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Thanks.” He pulled out an enchanted jug, and poured hot water in to the teapot. “Milk’s in here- there’s a few different teas here to try- but not that one.” He pointed to a box on the top shelf. “It’s just peat and sallowroot- it’s absolutely disgusting but it’s a prescription.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She tried to keep the surprise from showing on her face- both of those ingredients were a common remedy for depression, and she wasn’t unfamiliar with the sour taste herself. She wouldn’t expect it from a seemingly upbeat person like Gordie, though. “How did you remember not to do magic for three months?” She changed the subject. “Am I going to ruin the experiment if I forget?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You get used to it. And I’m still able to do a little bit of magic, with ingredients- just not using my own body’s reserve.” He sighed. “And anyway, it’s not the end of the world if you do forget, so long as we document it- I mean, try not to, but this is just a pilot study to see if we can make it work at all. Ideally we’d be able to control for mistakes like that in a study by having more participants.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Good luck with that. You know I only agreed to this because I’m too bloody curious for my own good, right?” She said, leaving the unspoken <i> and because I’m a freak who enjoys things like this </i> out. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He shrugged. “I dunno. In the olden days lots of women would just do it all the time- it was just a part of life. People seemed to be getting back towards that mindset fifty years ago, too.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She hummed, having been often compared to a free-and-easy Augustian girl by both admirers and people scolding her. “That was then- people are way too straight laced now.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hmm. I suppose if you work out, we might have a chance at changing that.” He said, and reached for a warded tin to put on the tray with the tea things. “By the way-  the tea’s fair game, but you have to lock up the snacks around here- there’s just too many eighteen year olds with bottomless appetites. Although- I should probably get you a key to this- if you want more snacks I’m not going to stop you.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>They went back into the study, and he rummaged around in his pocket for a key ring to unlock the ward, revealing a tin full of elegant little biscuits. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’ll do my best.” She said, and grabbed a couple to snack on while she studied. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>For a while, the only sound was the clink of chinaware, and the rustle of pages and pens as the two of them did their separate work in peace. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>—-</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She was feeling almost hungry again by the time he stood up and offered to show her back to the dining hall for dinner- she went down with him without complaining, even as she thought wistfully about another dinner like the day before, and he sat her down next to Piers, who waved, and a lady with pink hair and a sour expression she vaguely recognised.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Plum- you’ll have met Klara already.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Charmed.” The woman said, without looking up from her book.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It’s nice to meet you, Klara.” Plum said, wondering when on earth she had met this person. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie sighed. “Klara.” He chided. “I asked you to look after Plum today and you didn’t- did you even introduce yourself?” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>The woman looked up at them and shrugged. “Sorry? She’s a grown woman, she can look after herself. I’ve got stuff to do, and I don’t coddle my volunteers the way you do.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That’s why none of your volunteers last a week.” Piers said. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Klara rolled her eyes. “What? So I have to do a bunch of extra busy work just because handsy McGee can’t keep it in his- ow!” She glared at Gordie, then kicked out and caught Plum by mistake.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Klara! That was me!” She yelped and shuffled away.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Sorry, sorry.” Klara said. “I totally meant to get our resident- mmmph!” She whipped round to glare at the tall, bespectacled man who’d just stuck her mouth shut with magic, and elegantly folded himself into the chair next to her, tossing his long blonde hair. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Please excuse her- This one can’t stand not being the centre of attention.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Klara ripped the cloud of purple magic away from her mouth with brute force. “Like you can talk, big head.” She spat. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>The man ignored her, and beamed over at Plum. “Miss Plum, I believe? The names Avery. Avery baumgartener. I lecture on astrology, mind reading and far-seeing.” She reached out for a handshake, but he instead kissed her hand dramatically. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you- I’m sure this experiment will be a great success.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“So you’re a psychic, huh.” She said,  removing her hand from his grasp with a wince.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He seemed undeterred. “Indeed.” He nodded and made his teacup float up from the table, and bob in the air beside him. “I come from a most illustrious long line of psychics- from my fathers side, of course- but my mother’s family, the Kirschgartners, lifelong rivals of the Baumgartners- well, they could hold their own in any battle of the wills- and the story of my parents’ meeting is quite the tale in itself...”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“How interesting.” She murmured, and politely listened to several  generations of Baum-Kirsch-gartner family history without any conversational way out- the other three were talking amongst themselves, and she longed to join them, even if they did seem to be just talking budgets. Thank goodness for the food- she didn’t know that she could stand it otherwise. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She made it up to her second plate of herring pie, and the thrilling tale of how the Baumgartner crest got its characteristic bear in its upper right corner, in an incident involving a bear-drawn carriage getting overturned when the bears ran off in search of a particularly large beehive- when she was saved by Raihan grabbing Avery’s still-floating teacup out of the air, drinking it and then plonking himself gracelessly down opposite Plum, grinning at her and laughing at Avery’s flustered outrage.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“‘Sup lads and ladies?” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hello, Raihan.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He grinned at her, sharp teeth on full display. “How’re you doing, Plum? Been getting on already, hm?” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She felt herself blushing as he nodded down at her- did she look bigger already? “Well- I’m doing my best.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I wanna do my best too- I’ve been sprinting all day and then had to do more bloods again. Gotta stock back up, innit.” He rubbed his hands together and looked eagerly over at the server coming over with his plate. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“So what’s your speciality, Raihan?” Plum asked. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Can’t you guess from looking at me?” He said, poking his forked tongue out at her.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Well... no?” She said, diplomatically.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He burst out laughing. “I suppose I could do something else. But I’m basically specialised in being a beastman. I wasn’t born like this, and neither was Leon- I made myself part-dragon.” He rolled up his sleeve to show bright turquoise scales dotted over his forearm.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That’s- incredible.” She reached out and touched his scaly arm without thinking about it- it was warm, like human skin, but the texture of the dragon scales was like polished stone. “How do you <i> make </i> yourself into a beastman?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Trial and error, and the strongest blood-splicing spells I can try on a human.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Raihan- that sounds- horrendously dangerous. That’s forbidden for a reason.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He shrugged. “So’s the magic you’re studying.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yeah, but mine’s forbidden just because people think it’s indecent. You could straight-out kill yourself.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I have my reasons.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She realised she was still gripping his forearm, and let go, returning to her dinner. “Well-please be a little careful.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Well, if you keep askin’ so nicely, I might. Don’t worry too much, though. I’m enough dragon now that I’m pretty stable.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“So... can you breathe fire?” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“He can breathe <i>sparks</i>.” Avery interrupted, clearly not happy at being ousted as the centre of attention. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“And only on an empty stomach, too- I’m working on it.” Raihan pouted. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Basically, all he’s managed is to give himself a forked tongue and an overlarge appetite.” Avery said.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That is so not true!” Raihan protested. “I’m so much stronger than a regular person! And fire breathing is not nothing, anyway!” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Even <i> Gordie</i> can breathe fire.” Piers joined back in to the conversation, seemingly for the chance to bully Raihan.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hey! Why are you dragging me into this?” Gordie said, elbowing Piers. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Even <i> I </i> can breathe fire, Raihan.” Plum said, unable to resist joining in too. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Oh yeah? Prove it or I don’t believe you.” He pouted, but his startlingly blue eyes crinkled in a smile.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It’s not like it’s hard.” She said, then shut her eyes, put one hand on her stomach, breathed in and forced out a small cloud of flames. Funny- it seemed to be easier on a full stomach. “And how come you can’t do it after you’ve eaten- mine feels like it’s the other way around?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Because mine’s actually dragonfire, not just igniting the air in front of your mouth and pretending.” Raihan patted his stomach. “But when I’ve got some food in me, it goes out. Only for now though.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That’s crazy-“ she peered over the table at his stomach, as though she’d be able to see anything through his blue waistcoat. “Your insides are literally on fire?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Not much- I just have very flammable stomach acids now.” He took another big bite of bread and relaxed back in his chair. “My guts’re fine. It’s great- I’m never cold anymore.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“That reminds me- Raihan, I still want to feed you rubies and see what happens.” Gordie interrupted.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Good luck clearing it with Rose. Ever since I got my fire to actually light, I’ve been snowed under with guard duty. There’s no way he’d clear me not doing magic for however many days it’d take for that experiment.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Ugh. I suppose maybe I could work around it somehow.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Please do. I’ve got to beat that bastard Leon somehow, and if eating rocks’ll get me there, that actually doesn’t sound too bad right now.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>They carried on arguing on and off for the rest of dinner- mostly good-natured ribbing but Plum got the feeling that there was an edge of genuine rivalry to it- she supposed it was understandable. The university had a long-running tradition of pitting its warriors against each other, and the annual tournament was coming up. She’d attended it before- but never really paid it much attention, beyond the spectacle of it all. You could never get close enough to study the techniques, so it just seemed like a load of posturing. It was weird to think that probably, most of the people she was sharing a table with were the same ones who ripped each other to shreds every year for the whole country’s enjoyment.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>It was nice, though. Just sitting around and chatting, getting to know everyone and where they all slotted in to each other’s friendships. It felt like whenever they got a new member at the guild- only this time, she was the new member- everyone was curious about her and how she came to be doing this. She was relieved that she hadn’t messed things up too terribly with Gordie- he chatted to her a little, but mostly returned to discussing budgets with Piers, although not in an unfriendly way. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She ended up talking mostly with Raihan- who seemed very interested in her both her conversation and her portion size, as she pushed aside her final plate of pudding and rubbed her stomach, stifling a burp behind her hand.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“All done already?” He’d eaten a lot too- although not as much as her, it was enough to make an impact on his skinny waist, and his stomach was pushing out against his tight waistcoat.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Raihan, I had five courses. I’m full.” She felt enormous- her stomach was resting in her lap again, full and round and making her dozy with all the effort it was going to take to digest yet another oversized meal. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Sure you can’t squeeze in a little more for me? You look like you could handle a little more.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Do I now?” She felt herself blushing, and snuck a look over at Gordie, despite herself. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Raihan followed her gaze and grinned. “Yeah- you look like you want some more. And I love a girl with an appetite on her.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Gordie stood up, abruptly. “I’m going to turn in- Plum, can you find your way back on your own?”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I can, thanks.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’ll take care of her for you- don’t worry, Gordie.” Raihan said, winking up at him.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Goodnight, then.” He replied, voice carefully even. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Night, Gordie.” Plum said, sneaking a glance up at him, but he’d already turned and was on his way out.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Some tea, Miss Arnby?” A server asked, reaching past her to put down a tray of hot drinks and little cakes.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yes please.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“And could you get her some more cakes- she’s not quite finished.” Raihan said.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Alright, sir.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Raihan! I’m stuffed already.” She complained, but picked at the plate of elegant little fancies that was slid in front of her. “I’ve eaten so much cake today.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You can stop if you want, and I’ll eat ‘em.” He said, and reached for her plate, but she snatched it away before she really thought about it.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“No- I’ll manage. Somehow.” She groaned and shifted in her chair, sitting forward and arching her back- that was better. She felt enormous like that- her belly rested on her thighs and she actually found herself spreading them to give it a little more room- the last few cakes were delicious torture, as she massaged the bottom of her gut to try to get things moving and crammed them in to the mass in her stomach.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Now you look full.” Raihan said, sounding altogether too pleased with himself. Spirits- was he into this too? She hoped so. His slim hips and althetic body would fit perfectly between her thighs. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“No kidding.” She said, breathing heavily and resting her elbows on the table. Now she was thinking about Raihan, she couldn’t stop- her mind leapt to all sorts of fun scenarios with the beast man- mostly involving his fantastic sharp teeth and finding out exactly how much of him was covered in scales. Stop it, Plum- Avery looked up at her just as her pussy throbbed- oh spirits, it was definitely showing in her aura how turned on she was. Bloody psychics. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I think I’m going to go and lie down- it’s been lovely getting to know you all. See you tomorrow.” She stood up and hiccuped, one hand on her belly. Hells, it felt even heavier standing up. At least she wasn’t too fat to walk- she had some shred of decency left tonight.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I’ll come with. It’s about time I went to bed too.” Raihan said smoothly. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Raihan, your bed is in the opposite direction! I’ll show Plum back.” Piers said, shaking his head and standing up.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Plum went beet red. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You think chivalry’s that far in the gutter that I can’t go out of my way for a few floors?” Raihan protested. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hmm, not gonna answer that.” Piers said, chuckling. “Come on, you.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>—-</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>They seemed to be just walking. Which was fine- Piers didn’t exactly seem like the talkative type, but- “What was that, back there? Are you jealous? You don’t need to protect me from Raihan- he doesn’t have anything to do with the experiment!”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Sorry love, old habits. Between Gordie and Raihan, there’s a bit of a perfect storm in the staff at the moment.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You say that like I’d mind being in between Gordie and Raihan.” She said, unable to resist the off-colour joke. And really, how could she resist that mental image? </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Piers snorted. “Don’t say that, or I’ll start getting jealous for real.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, Piers.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“And that’s where the fun is, isn’t it?” He waved her off at her door, and sauntered back to the staircase. “Sleep well, sweetheart. Pleasant dreams.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>The minute she got the door locked behind her, she started pulling off her clothes- especially her bra was starting to become constricting. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Even though she wanted nothing more than to lie down, she spent a minute admiring herself in the mirror as she took her hair down. She really looked enormous- the moonlight made her skin look pale and doughy, and her stomach sagged freely forward without any clothes in the way. With her clothes on, she’d looked more than a little pregnant, but without them, it left no doubt as to why her belly was so huge. It was still soft with fat, especially at the bottom- she dug her hands in to it and they sank in deliciously far. She cradled herself in her hands and tried to lift up- it was quite the weight to be dealing with- she’d have to be careful not to do her back in.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Speaking of backache - her boobs were looking gorgeous too- almost resting on her gut but they were still perky enough that they didn’t, quite. That didn’t stop them from swinging around, and her nipples had perked up in the night air, tender and over sensitive from the bra that had been getting too tight for a while now. She rubbed at the wire mark on her breastbone. Time to size up- usually she could go without a bra if she was wearing an over-bust corset, but the way she was eating, she’d probably burst out of the laces of even her most forgiving one. And even though that was a nice image, in reality it probably wouldn’t be worth the constriction on her poor belly. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She looked- debauched. So big, and soft, and everything shook every time she moved- she cupped her breasts and grinned at how little of them actually fit into her hands now. The main problem was that she didn’t have enough hands free to touch everything- oh, why did everything immoral have to feel so damn good. She bit her lip and thought back to the sternly worded ‘women’s etiquette’ book that her mother had presented her with about a year before she’d started to bleed- there had been one page where the author sternly talked about not giving in to lust and resisting temptation, and even at the time, the picture had seemed a little exciting to her- nothing especially raunchy really, compared to things she’d seen later- but the chubby, slutty girl arm in arms with two boys in the illustration had somewhat haunted her. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>And now here she was- she’d gorged herself all day until her gut looked like a watermelon, and she was achingly wet from it. Maybe she’d always been doomed to become the girl in the picture.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Folk always talked about her, after all. Even as a child, she’d always been a heavyset sort of person- with wide shoulders and a metabolism that clung to fat like a limpet to a rock pool- and when her boobs had grown in this oversized- she’d kind of felt like it had marked her out as a terrible person, even before adulthood had given her the potbelly and plump hips to match. She’d given up trying to hide their size when she’d got to twenty one and realised that no matter how many thick knits she wore, she wasn’t getting any flatter without a drastic magical intervention, so she just wore what she liked, and if that meant tight leather armour, well, tough. Folk didn’t even talk about her much more- they’d always called her loose and many worse things even before she’d so much as kissed a boy when she was sixteen, so it didn’t make much difference.  </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She didn’t even want to think about the kind of things folk would call her now, though- looking like she’d eaten half the food in Newcastle - she really was falling into depravity. And it felt great. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She flopped back on the bed to give herself a good seeing-to before she fell asleep, sticky and sated and dreaming of more food. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>—-</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She didn’t often remember her dreams- but perhaps because so much of what she’d eaten that day was cake, she felt almost lucid that night. It was a good dream, at least. She was... somewhere. It was hazy but there was blue sky above her so she she must have been outside, but everything was distant and weird the way things were in dreams. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She was definitely naked, and drinking... something? Which she couldn’t quite taste, but it felt glorious- she kept gulping it down long past the amount she’d be able to do in real life- until she’d drunk herself so big she couldn’t reach- her belly was practically as wide as she was tall- she rolled onto her back and then- Gordie was there- sweet Gordie- she thought he might have been fucking her but didn’t really know - everything felt distant and sleepy, and eventually he settled back to cuddle her against his chest. He felt so nice and soft, and it was so nice to be held. It had been too long, she thought hazily, as dream-Gordie threaded his fingers through her hair and murmured sweet nothings to her. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>It wasn’t as though she’d been going without- she’d never had much of a steady relationship, but lately it seemed to have been even more so- and the last couple of times she’d done it had been rather rushed- still good, but there hadn’t been the time or the interest in a long, lazy cuddle afterwards. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>She woke up, alone, snuggling against nothing but a pillow.</i>
  </i>
</p>
  </div></div>
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